Cake

My son's birthday is today and I just spent a few hours sticking 405 tiles on his Minecraft cake, so had a few mindnumbing moments to think about the process that I go through when making cakes.

Let's pretend he's a client. He would be considered a difficult one, he likes chocolate and that's about all I get. This is where I would normally start the interrogation to get as much info about this person as I possibly can and start throwing out ideas. These ideas are generally shot down rapid fire, because while they don't know what they want...they absolutely know what they DON'T want. I will often throw out really crazy things because it does start making them focus their thoughts. Once we've narrowed it down, (in Keegan's case, I just made the executive decision to do Minecraft logo due to his current passion about it) I will draw (badly) a picture of what they seem to be visualizing. For this cake, I just uploaded the logo.

Next, I panic! Seriously, look at that thing. Can I really do this? This happens with every cake. No joke. I've been making them a while but what if I forgot what I'm doing? Or what if I flat out can't follow through on an idea. Ah!

So clearly this cake will need to be square, and it will need enough layers to be a perfect cube. That math I didn't think I needed...I suddenly need. Obviously, the cake pan determines the length and width for me, but then I have to make it the same height, which involves how many inches cake + how much icing in between = this many perfectly high inches. Snore.... Needless to say, we have a cube. I then dirty ice it and stick it in the freezer. Dirty ice, just means a thin coat of icing that will hold down all the crumbs (once chilled) so that when you are ready to really ice it you get a beautiful crumb free icing. Try it, makes life so much easier.

Right now it's pretty ugly, and pretty scary. Hate when people drop in at this stage, then we're all panicked. I don't need it to be smooth since I'm putting all those tiny tiles on it.  I do need to put enough icing on to taste good and for the tiles to sink in to when I press them flat to appear to be a smooth wall of tiles. The reason for the brown and green icing? Think grout. Actually from here on out, think tiling and grouting. The tiles are not perfect and so some of the icing might show through and we wouldn't want it to be white, that doesn't match. Tacky! Now starts the mindnumbing part. Cutting all those tiles...

...and sticking them on the cake...

...and we're tiling...and we're tiling...Oy! 

Finally I finish up, grab a large flat paddle and smoosh all the tiles in and hope nothing is gushing out the other side. I try to make the walls appear as flat as possible and the cube to appear to be...well, cube like. I then transfer the cake to a clean board, put some kind of edge around the bottom, and write cute things on it. 

Perhaps not as complicated as you thought, but often way more time consuming than you think.

That will be $1,000,000, please.

Until next time,

Julie