Critter Crunch

Critter Crunch

A Critter Crunch birthday cake was requested of me from a friend of my hubby.  Critter Crunch is a puzzle game available on the PlayStation Network.  Hubby and I played the demo and really liked the adorable creatures and beautiful artwork in the game.  I was not thrilled to discover that I wasn't very good at the game, though!  

Stats:

• carved 8"x3" chocolate cake (I can't remember which cake mix box)
• iced with vanilla Italian Meringue Buttercream 
• filled with vanilla whipped pudding
• covered in marshmallow fondant
• "Happy Birthday" in blue Royal Icing
• eye glossed with 50/50 corn syrup/Everclear

In the last cake class I volunteered at, the instructor mentioned that she no longer uses any cake release spray or mixture to prepare her pans.  Instead she lines the bottom with parchment paper and then, when done baking and cooling, she runs a knife down along the sides of the pan.  She believes letting the cake stick to the sides while baking will help prevent shrinking.  I lined the bottom of my pans with parchment paper and wrapped baking strips on the sides.

They baked up pretty well and came out of the pan nicely.  I think I'll do this from now on! 

Over time I've learned that having a base board (cardboard or foam core) in the final shape of the cake is extremely helpful.  Here is the rough shape, a slight teardrop cut out of a cake board.  I used a steak knife to carve the cake into shape.  The cake had been in the freezer overnight so it was easy to carve without mutilating it.

My cake wasn't originally as high as I wanted the final product to be.  That meant I needed to build up some with icing.  I also trimmed the sides to be within 1/4" of the cake board.  I wanted the icing to be flush with the board when I covered it with fondant. 

Luckily I've watched enough cake TV shows to know that I should carve first, then torte and fill.  Otherwise, there'd be a huge mess of filling squishing out the sides and cake tearing and crumbling.

As always, my dam made from cake spackle.

Crumb coat.

First layer.

My critter has some facial features and expressions.  This was achieved by putting fondant on top of the buttercream but under the final fondant coat.  I made some fondant snakes for the mouth and eyebrows.  With icing I built up one side of the mouth snake so it would have a gradual rise.  The other side was to be indented to give the illusion of his 2-tone body.

As suggested by Mike McCarey's Cakenology video (demonstrating how to carve a cake into the shape of a car), I used my hands and soft buttercream to smooth out the final layers of icing.  After giving my critter a good belly rub, he was the smoothest cake I've ever made!  I did about 3 passes, putting the cake in the freezer for a few minutes so the buttercream would firm up, then applying more room temperature buttercream on top.

Before belly rubs.

After!

Marshmallow fondant colored with Wilton Golden Yellow and Lemon Yellow gel.

I actually think this is the best fondant job I've done on a cake!  The fondant went on even and smooth; only 2 air bubbles to pop.  It stuck to the buttercream without me having to wet it.  Hurray!  His feet are 2 chunks of extra fondant roughly shaped into triangles.  I glued him down to the gold rectangular board with some piping gel.

This cake reminded me that I seriously need to purchase some clay tools.  Gumpaste tools are nice (I have Wilton's set), but really, a good set of cheap wooden clay tools can go a long way.  I only have a few clay tools left over from my high school days, but they were invaluable for bringing out the fondant ridges and lines. 

Free-hand cut out some white fondant as his belly with a craft knife.  Notice the shaggy cuts to emulate fur!

Do you know what's a complete waste of time and money?  The Wilton Alphabet Cutters!  I tried and tried to get a decent P.  After a few attempt, I settled for what I got.  Then came a B.  There is NO FREAKING WAY anyone can get fondant out of the B shape.  I don't even have a tool narrow enough to force the fondant out from the other end.  Perhaps a bamboo skewer would have worked, but at that point I practically threw the fondant across the room.

I piped "Happy Birthday" with Royal Icing instead.  Tip is Wilton #4.

I made some eyes with white and blue fondant, cut with a small round Christmas ornament cookie cutter.  The gloss was 50/50 corn syrup/Everclear brushed on to it.

I am very pleased with how this little guy came out.  I do wish I could have figured out how to give him little ears, but oh well.  Also couldn't get a decent photo of him.  Most of my caking is done at night with little ambient light.

Photo Gallery

Portal 2

Portal 2

If you play video games and didn't take off of work to play Portal 2 when it released, well, perhaps you should have.  I know no one at my job would have blamed you.

Portal 2 is a sequel to a previous video game that promises cake to the main character if she succeeds a series of "tests".  The cake is a lie.  Read more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_%28video_game%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_2

Hubby and I started the cooperative campaign and are a couple hours in.  Right now he's playing the single-player version and I'm trying my best to not pay attention so as to not spoil anything for when I play.

. . . I hope there's cake . . .

Tuskarr of Northrend

Tuskarr of Northrend

from World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

Event: "That Takes The Cake" 2011
7th Annual Sugar Art Show & Cake Competition (Austin, TX)

Division: Adult Intermediate

Style: Special Techniques

Media: modeling chocolate, rice cereal treats, royal icing, food coloring, candy coating, wooden skewer and toothpicks

This little guy won 1st place in his category!  I had a great time making him and hopefully he'll last for a while.  If you're interested, here is my work log for him.

What is a Tuskarr?  The Tuskarr are a race of walrus humanoids present in the massive multiplayer online role playing game World of Warcraft (i.e. a video game).  They were introduced in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.  I have a strong fondness for these creatures because they are based off of Eskimo and Inuit tribes.  To me, they're like the Filipinos of the north!  Tuskarr are jolly and live simple lives, but possess strong beliefs and come from a rich culture.  For my birthday I got a Tuskarr model that is wonderfully detailed with excellent craftsmanship.  I wanted to create a sugar art piece that would honor these creatures.

I used a wire coat hanger to make a rough skeleton to support the model. This was screwed in to a 10" wooden square base and additionally secured with hot glue.  Rice cereal treats were compressed around the wire frame and became the majority of his bulk.  I coated the shaped rice cereal treats with thin Royal Icing and he was left to dry.  Modeling chocolate was pressed and smoothed around that, creating musculature and giving him more weight.  I used clay and gumpaste tools to carve and sculpt his features.  Finally he received an extensive coloring session using a variety of gel, powder, and liquid food colorings.  His spear is a chocolate covered wooden skewer.  The other accents are modeling chocolate.  I used a clay extruder to make ropes from modeling chocolate.  No molds were used.

The Sims 3: Very Fulfilled

The Sims 3: Very Fulfilled
(+5 skill points => 370/400)  

We're doing a lot of over-time to make sure The Sims 3 for PS3 and XBox 360 makes it on to shelves in time.  All that hard work deserves cake!  The image is my first buttercream transfer and represents an icon seen in game that indicates your Sim is "very fulfilled".

Stats:

• extended Duncan Hines French Vanilla cake mix (2 batches)
• 10"x4" square
• IMBC buttercream transfer decoration
• filled with Jello Cheesecake Cosco-style mousse
• iced with IMBC with a shot of LorAnn "Buttery Sweet Dough Bakery" Emulsion 
• shell and reverse shell borders with American style buttercream

I've actually never done a single tier this big before.  All of this was done in one night except for the baking.  Unfortunately I had to work late that night as well, so I didn't start until 10 pm and went to bed around 2 am.

The cakes were made using this extension recipe but replaced the normal flour with cake flour. Honestly I couldn't taste the difference.  There's probably too little in the recipe for me to really notice.  I'm getting bored of this recipe all together anyway, so there may be some scratch cakes in my future.

It's been a while since I've used my 10" square pans, and I underestimated how quickly it would bake up.  Each pan used baking strips and a flower nail in the center.  An hour at 350 was just a bit too long ... these cakes were probably a little on the dry side. 

The first layer was baked a week ago and there was some difficulty removing it from the pan.  For the second layer, I cut out a 10" square of wax paper to go at the bottom of the pan before pouring in the batter.  I then prepped normally with Baker's Joy spray.  Once baked up, I just had to run a knife down the sides and then it popped out beautifully!  It's probably important to have a paper barrier for cakes 10" and larger so they don't split in transition from pan to cooling rack.  Usually I make 8" rounds and it's never an issue.

This was my first time to make a buttercream transfer.  The idea is to copy a picture using piped buttercream and then freeze it in order to be transferred to the top of a cake when firm.  My source art was resized and then flipped horizontally before printing on to paper.  I taped a piece of parchment paper to a flat, glass candle plate.  Underneath the plate is the source art.  Underneath that is a dish towel so it could be pressed closely to the glass.  This way I could see the art clearly and also I could look under the dish and see if there were any gaps I missed with the buttercream.

I've read that IMBC can be difficult to color darkly ... I concur.  I had just a little blob of IMBC but dumped healthy squirts of Americolor black gel and Chefmaster black powder ... achieved dark purple at best.

Luckily dark purple was good enough for me.  I outlined my image in black first, then popped it in the freezer to firm up.  The lines weren't as consistent in thickness as I would have liked.  I used a wet paintbrush to try to even out the icing and press spread some in to the areas that weren't touching the parchment.

Once the black lines were frozen, I was able to fill in the other colored portions easily.  The green went first, then re-frozen, then the yellow section.  I covered the entire thing with a layer of yellow so the whole piece would be more level (i.e. flat).  The pattern was placed in the freezer to firm up.

The only issue was that the plate was so cold, the IMBC firmed up immediately as I piped on to the design.  The final result had a few imperfect fill lines.  Also notice I forgot to do the background outline in between the guy's legs! 

My Wilton 10" square pans are a little disappointing.  The sides are slightly angled so my layers needed to be trimmed after I stacked them.  Note to self: pay attention while trimming or you'll end up with cutting off more than you needed to!  After trimming I crammed some cake spackle into areas that needed some love.

As I said, this is the biggest single tier cake I've ever made.  I've made 10" square before, but never this tall.  My normal IMBC recipe was barely enough to cover the cake.  Unfortunately many areas didn't get covered properly and there wasn't enough to really get some sharp edges going.

This was the best that was going to happen at midnight!  Deal with it!

After carefully removing the frozen buttercream design, it was plopped on to the top of the cake.  Another note to self: only press down on the frozen buttercream in a few spots ... avoid getting black smudge marks everywhere because you kept changing your fingertip positions!

It was after 1 am when I had to decide if I would make another batch of buttercream for the borders or maybe just run to Walmart and buy a bunch of sprinkles and haphazardly stick them to the sides of the cake.  Turned out a Crisco + powdered sugar buttercream was the laziest option.  Yet another cake with shell and reverse shell borders!

During this entire process I found myself woefully unprepared for making and transporting a cake this large.  I did not have a drum or tile large or study enough for the cake to fit on.  I cut out a ~13" square piece of foam core board and wrapped in in freezer paper, then in Press 'N Seal.  This alone was not enough to support the weight long-term, so I kept the cake and board on top of a large cutting board while working with it.  I didn't have a cake box big enough for this, so it was transported in a left-over food catering box. 

People seemed to enjoy the cake.  The only problem was that I forgot to remove it from the fridge before serving, so it was still cold :(

The Sims 3

Cakes for The Sims 3 Console Development Team!
(+10 skill points => 365/400) 

Don't worry if you don't "get" it.  These are mostly inside-joke cakes.  The left cake features the "plumb-bob", a prominent entity in the Sims video game franchise.  The cake on the right features what the Sims console developers see when the game encounters an invalid "thumbnail" texture.  I'm a caker by night, but my day-job is that of a UI programmer.  Our current project is the Sims 3 for XBox 360 and PS3 ... and my team has been working incredibly hard to get this game into a box and out to stores.  Here's my way of giving them a little joy, a few laughs, and excessive amounts of calories.

This actually happened a while ago but I seemingly forgot to post this.

Stats:

• Betty Crocker Golden Vanilla cake mix in 8" rounds
• 1 iced and filled with IMBC
• 1 iced and filled with chocolate peanut butter ganache
• electric blue fondant (Toba Garrett's recipe)
• Satin Ice marbled green fondant
• Cake-ball mix plumb-bob
• fondant error texture painted with food coloring gels mixed with Everclear

I seemed to be pretty camera-trigger-happy with these cakes, so let's take a trip back through the basics!

 Place a square of non-skid material (e.g. shelf-liner) on your work surface so you cake doesn't slide around.

Put a dab of whatever you're icing the cake with in the middle of your cake board to secure your cake to its base.

Notice cakes may be delicate and rip during pan-extraction.  We'll patch this up later.

Ugly filling lines will also be "fixed".

 This is Toba Garrett's "cake spackle" technique.  Cake crumbs + icing = paste.

Use this as your crumb coat.  Fill in any gaps or gaping holes (e.g. replace missing chunk of cake)

Notice cake is now smooth and whole.

Another dab will do ya.

Still not good at smooth IMBC, but whatever ... these cakes are for free.

Let's talk about fondant.  In my opinion, fondant should taste like straight up chewy sugar.  Alter it with any flavorings you want, but I have found that butter and cream don't really add much.  In this case, I added a bit of melted white chocolate.  Satin Ice has a chemically taste that I could pick out anywhere.  Not sure how other manufactured fondants taste, but I'll bet good money that I'll prefer the taste of homemade fondant any day.  Here's a mound of blue stuff.

Americolor Electric Blue, to be exact.

Chocolate + peanut butter = darn good ganache

Makes for a good base under fondant too.

 It's been a while since I've covered a cake with fondant.
No complications to speak of.  Love that blue!

Pause to talk about marbling fondant.  I had never done this before, and probably should have researched it before hand.  I took some homemade fondant (white) and mixed it with some green Satin Ice to make a pastel color.  I mixed that with the straight-up green Satin Ice to marble it.  Note I should not mix.  I should have coiled different colored "snakes" together and only lightly worked them.  What I did blended the colors more than I wanted, but was still good first try.

If you have never played the Sims, the "plumb-bob" denotes what character you are currently controlling.  The plumb-bob is a ... uh ... 12 sided ... diamond shape ... thingie.  I forget the term for this shape, but what I made was actually only half of one, as if it were laying down on length-wise.

This is shaped out of cake ball material.  Cake crumbs + a little icing = rough clay.  After getting the shape I wanted, I stuck this baby in the freezer to firm up.

Covered the plumb-bob, trimmed it, then stuck it on the blue one.

For the texture error, I cut a rectangular piece of fondant and painted rainbow stripes using food coloring gel (Wilton) mixed with Everclear.  Ideally this would have been made of pre-colored fondant strips rolled out together, but it was way too late in the night for fancy.  My co-workers will have to settle for shortcuts.

My cricut cut some clear vinyl in a similar font of what the error looks like.

I filled in the stencil with black-colored IMBC and was not pleased with the results.  My 'm' was very smeared.  After attending the Capital Confectioners' Day of Sharing, I vow to try stenciling again using stiff royal icing instead.

Now to ruin a perfectly fine looking cake.

There.  Now it's funny.

My team seemed to really appreciate the laugh and the cake.  Go, team, go!  We're almost done!