a few more - cake deco cont.

before painting cakes, i made my first and only attempt at sculpted cakes. it wasn't too bad. but i didn't enjoy it. and i knew i wouldn't enjoy learning about it and practicing just yet. it was a dinosaur monster truck for my son's 3rd birthday. the cake, itself, was horrible too. but good enough for my 9 year old to devour with wreckless abandon.

then my sister in law asked if i could do a cake for her. at first i thought about the time consumption involved, the ingredients and how i needed more time to get better at cake deco, which is something i was not looking forward to doing. but i figured using the requested cake as more practice might lead to something. i had this elaborate idea of a tiered cake. the bottom would be surrounded by grave stone and cross cookies decorated with gray royal icing. at the top would be a hand looking at though it were reaching out from inside the cake, trying to grasp a rose. the top would be covered with crushed chocolate cookies to resemble dirt on a fresh grave.

but i didn't have time for that. besides, when it comes to art, i tend to get reeeeaaally into something. i spend a lot of time on it getting down to the small details. i hate being rushed. i need time to concentrate otherwise there's no way for me to appreciate the final product. so i took a different approach.

"what about a simple handpainted cake? no sculpting or anything."

so i painted it dark blue and added zebra pattern stripes to it. (above left) the cake itself turned out really good to. that first experience taught me quite a bit about using diluted water color to paint despite just using two colors. i enjoyed it so much that i decided to push myself a bit and create a scene. for my cousin's going away cake (see previous blog entry) i did just that.

since then i've had some hits and misses. often the misses happen when

i'm pressed for time. the cake to the right is my latest one. it was somewhat volunteered. and it had been about a month since the one before that. and i knew that here is where i'd be able to come with a design based on a concept. my sister in law's best friend was celebrating her birthday, starting at a bowling alley and she was having a 50's theme.

the purple polka dots are the result of a few flaws. i made the fondant too thin and it was stretching in places. so i made some purple circles out of fondant and stuck them around the cake.

below are pictures of the process. it starts with a sketch. i could always create it on the computer complete with colors and instructions, but i find that drawing it out physically helps the creative process. sometimes i color it in with pencils. most of the time i just jot down instructions and notes.

after that is simple outlining on the cake itself with a very thin brush and black food coloring.

the rest is done according to color. i concentrate on one color at a time instead of going section by section. since i only try to use as little food coloring as possible, i only work with a few drops at a time and it dries rather quickly.