2D
Camouflage
by Tiffany Bohlender · submitted Aug 16, 2010 · 2010 contest
1 / 9
Description
This cake actually doubled as my boyfriend's birthday cake (two birds with one cake!) and my best friend helped because she had nothing better to do on a super hot Saturday. It was a huge lemon cake (11" x 14" cakepan) with homemade buttercream frosting and marshmallow fondant. The little guys on the cake were also fondant (soooo much sugar) and we had a blast making it. We had quite a few flubs, seeing as this was the first time any of us had made a) a cake this big and b) fondant. It ended up being quite the learning experience.
First, my friend and I baked the cake. 2 boxes of lemon cake later, we had a huge cake to cool and then flip. Problem #1 presented itself: No pan/cake board/cooling rack/cutting board/mobile flat surface was large enough to handle this thing. We ended up squeezing it into a cookie sheet. Not sure how that worked out, but it did! We let it cool overnight.
Next morning, my boyfriend came over and we got started on making the frosting and fondant. Charlie helped me mix the buttercream, and all was going well- until we tasted it. Problem #2: Charlie had difficulty decyphering my handwritting and thought '1 tsp' was '1 tblsp'. This mixup was not of almond or vanilla extract (that would have just made the flavor stronger-not necessarily bad), it was for the salt content. Of course. So our buttercream is salty. Good thing we have fondant! So we iced the cake, not as liberally as we would have liked since it wasn't as yummy as we would have liked.
Now we come to the fondant. Surprisingly easy to make, but since we had never made it before, we weren't sure how much we would need...so we doubled the batch! We ended up with twice as much fondant as needed, hence why the little guys on the cake ended up being SOLID fondant. We needed to use it up! So, we rolled out the fondant and ran into our Problem #3: How do you transfer the amount of fondant required to cover a huge cake without tearing it? After a couple of failed attempts, we ended up sort of patching several pieces together once they made it on the cake. It actually gave it sort of a landscape feel. *shrug* Oh well! My friend Anne went to work on the bear, Charlie made the little honey pot and I worked on the bee. Anne's hands were stained various colors for several days, as it takes a lot of dye to get the color brown (something else we didn't know before attempting!). She put the little wings on it using toothpicks and we stuck it all on the cake. He ended up so cute that after I destroyed the cake (a week and a half later, after giving generous portions to others and eating WAY too much myself!), I put him in a little ziploc baggie and took him to Anne's, where he now lives in her freezer.
The cake was delicious, too! The slightly saltiness of the buttercream actually balanced out the super sweetness of the fondant and tasted pretty good. We really enjoyed making this cake, and have already collaborated on another cake (not for Threadcakes, though) for a friend's party that turned out AMAZINGLY! We will definitely be baking in the future!
First, my friend and I baked the cake. 2 boxes of lemon cake later, we had a huge cake to cool and then flip. Problem #1 presented itself: No pan/cake board/cooling rack/cutting board/mobile flat surface was large enough to handle this thing. We ended up squeezing it into a cookie sheet. Not sure how that worked out, but it did! We let it cool overnight.
Next morning, my boyfriend came over and we got started on making the frosting and fondant. Charlie helped me mix the buttercream, and all was going well- until we tasted it. Problem #2: Charlie had difficulty decyphering my handwritting and thought '1 tsp' was '1 tblsp'. This mixup was not of almond or vanilla extract (that would have just made the flavor stronger-not necessarily bad), it was for the salt content. Of course. So our buttercream is salty. Good thing we have fondant! So we iced the cake, not as liberally as we would have liked since it wasn't as yummy as we would have liked.
Now we come to the fondant. Surprisingly easy to make, but since we had never made it before, we weren't sure how much we would need...so we doubled the batch! We ended up with twice as much fondant as needed, hence why the little guys on the cake ended up being SOLID fondant. We needed to use it up! So, we rolled out the fondant and ran into our Problem #3: How do you transfer the amount of fondant required to cover a huge cake without tearing it? After a couple of failed attempts, we ended up sort of patching several pieces together once they made it on the cake. It actually gave it sort of a landscape feel. *shrug* Oh well! My friend Anne went to work on the bear, Charlie made the little honey pot and I worked on the bee. Anne's hands were stained various colors for several days, as it takes a lot of dye to get the color brown (something else we didn't know before attempting!). She put the little wings on it using toothpicks and we stuck it all on the cake. He ended up so cute that after I destroyed the cake (a week and a half later, after giving generous portions to others and eating WAY too much myself!), I put him in a little ziploc baggie and took him to Anne's, where he now lives in her freezer.
The cake was delicious, too! The slightly saltiness of the buttercream actually balanced out the super sweetness of the fondant and tasted pretty good. We really enjoyed making this cake, and have already collaborated on another cake (not for Threadcakes, though) for a friend's party that turned out AMAZINGLY! We will definitely be baking in the future!