Pokemon

Well, it's Fall again, and that means the annual Fall Fest, where Tara and I auction off our mad skillz to raise money for a good cause. This year we had a special treat--the winner was one of my current students, so I got to make his birthday cake! Very cool. Aaron came to me with a specific vision, and even loaned me one of his collectors books with the pages we'd need tabbed and everything. The actual structure of Ash's hat and the battlefield itself were pretty simple to construct, and the colors came out great. My favorite part, though, was molding the (yes, edible) figures for the top. This is Gyarados, a water pokemon, and Charizard, a fire pokemon--don't say we never taught you anything here at Caldwell Cakes. At first they didn't want to stand up straight on top of the field, but we managed to wrangle them into place without losing too many hit points. (Pause for laughter.) The overall effect fit in perfectly with the other party decorations, and the birthday boy seemed pleased. Mission accomplished.

Gone Bananas

Yes, this cake is actually banana flavored, and it's a Tara original! For Lucas' first birthday, she designed this monkey theme to celebrate. I'm particularly fond of the bunches still hanging in the trees. This one is a pretty small cake--I think we used our 6 inch pans--but you can hardly tell because of the way the colors pop. (Key to success: Tara mixes the fondant colors, too.)

Camaro

A friend of a friend called us up a few weeks ago looking for a specialty groom's cake. When she told me she wanted a replica of his prized Camaro, I pretty much automatically said yes. It's our first car, it's an antique, and it's a beauty. Lindsey sent us a batch of photos from different angles, and we got out our calculator. Turns out, sculpting a car is really hard! There are a lot of scale measurements that all have to match up if it's going to look right. All the embellishments, including the tires, are rolled fondant, so except for the toothpick antenna, this one's edible from the ground up. Instead of trying to turn white fondant red or black (which is nearly impossible), we picked up some powdered food coloring and mixed it with Everclear. The resulting "paint" was super easy to work with, and looked great when it dried. There's a support layer underneath that lifts the chassis up off the display board, and we copied his actual license plate. We had a lot of fun with this one; mazel tov, guys!

Airplanes

Frank officially retired this week after an illustrious career as an air traffic controller. The cake is a radar screen, with lots of little airplane blips traveling across the grid, and all around the perimeter of the base we piped his retirement slogan: "Half the money, twice the Frank."


We also piped the radar blips, but the blue and white grid lines are strips of fondant we ran through our pasta maker!


Our crowning achievements, of course, were the suspended airplanes overhead. They are actually made of the same cake as the base, and tasted just as delicious. Neither Frank nor his wife watch "Lost," but we do (with a vengeance), so the Oceanic and Ajira logos/colors were kind of a Caldwell Cakes inside joke.

Alabama

For a couple of Vols fans, we sure do a lot of Crimson Tide business. This one looks pretty simple in design, since that's what the client wanted, but actually took a lot of work to create. It's strawberry cake with two layers of actual cut strawberries in between, and since it's around 5 inches tall we also included a cardboard/dowel support structure.

The crimson (NOT maroon, as I've been reminded over and over) pieces are cut from fondant and embossed, while the "Bear Bryant" houndstooth pattern around the sides represents our first foray into the world of edible images. Printing them was easy--applying them vertically was the challenge. Happy Birthday, Shane!