Ok so here is one of the most intense cakes I've done...
This bad boy was soooo heavy that I couldn't even take it out of the box to photograph it!! The bottom is four layers of chocolate cake studded with Oreos with a cookies 'n' cream Oreo filling, iced with a layer of white chocolate ganache and covered in marshmallow fondant. This tier was airbrushed (original fondant color was the golden yellow of the batman logo) to give it that night sky effect (or is it affect?? I'm pretty sure effect but I never get it right with those two). Next tier pays homage to Spidy. It is four layers of red and blue funfetti cake filled with a vanilla mouse and iced with white chocolate ganache and covered with red fondant. Accents are black modeling chocolate. Top tier is a twist on Superman, using an X instead of the infamous S to represent the birthday boy Xavier!! This is two layers of strawberry cake, filled with a mixture of cream cheese and sugar soaked strawberries. This tier was also frosted in white chocolate ganache and covered in marshmallow fondant. Accents are golden yellow fondant and red modeling chocolate. The hands (per request of the birthday family) are rice Krispy treats covered in marshmallow fondant and air brushed to give it that dirty look that you would get from smashing buildings, cars, and villains all day.
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Now here's a fun story about this cake....it took me like 30 hours from start to finish!!! People don't realize the time it takes to make these cakes like this!! Bake time is at lease 3-4 hours since you only have so much oven space and unfortunately I only have one mixing bowl for my KitchenAid so you have to do a lot of stops for dish time in between. Then another 1-2 hours to make all the fillings and frostings (I use a lot of heavy cream in my fillings and frostings so I need to clean the bowl and allow about 15 minutes in the freezer to ensure the the fillings will set up nice and not runny between each batch) then another 2 hours to just make the fondant (tinting is a whole other story...maybe 15-20 for EACH non-dark color...black, red, brown, dark blue would all take hours...yeah I've tried...might as well buy pre-made), another hour for modeling chocolate and another several hours to prep your grocery and supply list once you're done calculating all the ingredients necessary to make this little monster (over 30 eggs, 132 ounces of heavy cream and 12 pounds of chocolate went into this cake....just so you get an idea) and this is all still just prep work!!
Then after the cakes chill in the fridge (mind you you have to take the time to wrap each in plastic wrap so that they don't dry out...this starts to get time consuming since you're doing 10) you have to trim each down to get them nice and level, then tort and fill, then stack, then trim, then crumb coat, trim again if necessary, then final coat. This takes another several hours.
And finally, you're cakes are ready to START to work with. I'll stop there because I'm pretty sure you get the idea of the amount of time that goes into these cakes. So after all that plus at least another 6 hours of just covering, decorating (mostly everything on this cake is hand cut), and stacking, my mini monument was in its box and ready for pick up. My aunt had come over to watch California play Japan in the Little League World Series and she said she just HAD to take a picture of this cake so we open the box and start snapping some photos. I look at my cake and it looks different. Its not as level as it was an hour ago (and I literally use a level on each individual tier to ensure its perfect for stacking) and then I realize, my bottom tier has cracked and this cake was coming down!!!!! In that moment my world started spinning...my sleep deprived nausea was hitting me and the countless hours of the previous days' work would be all for nothing and worst of all, little Xavier wasn't going to have a cake to sing with on his special day!! I realized that all the pushing I was doing to get the Hulk hands to stick to the cake in combination with the bottom tier not having enough dowels to support it had been the cause of this nightmare!! I tried to lift the Spiderman cake with a spatula but with the weight of the Superman cake and the Hulk hands I could not do it. I called my mom and sister over for help and with the three of us we did it!!! I would have at least two thirds of a cake to deliver!!!
I was not satisfied with this two thirds cake business though. I wanted little X to have a cake as big as he was for his birthday, not one that came up short (hah). and so I put some extra support in the bottom tier and a cake board covered in fondant on top to cover all the dowels and it actually looked part of the cake!! I delivered it to little X (along with a million apologies) and explained to his mom why is was late and why it wasn't stacked. I told her I didn't trust the the bottom tier even with the reinforcements to carry the weight of the top (in total this cake was at least 70 lbs) but that I would do it if she wanted it for pictures and singing at the end. She wanted to do it then so we went for it!! I was so nervous watching Xavier take his pics and frolic with my once perfect masterpiece. I stuck around to remove the top tiers after the photo op was complete but then we saw that it wasn't sinking!! I stuck around another 10 minutes and still no sinking!!! So we left it on and victory was ours.....well sort of.
I always try to save my clients money by not purchasing the plate stacking system (a system of stacking on interlocking plates) for each cake but from now on, no cutting corners!!! I'm sure anyone would rather pay an extra 20-40 bucks just to make sure their cake will get to its destination in one piece!!
There's my story for today! Hopefully you were able to enjoy my stress a little more than I did. You can visit my facebook page @ facebook.com/SweetTiersCakeDesing to see more of the cakes and desserts I've made or email me @ sweettierscakedesign@gmail.com to inquire about any sweets you'd like for your next special occassion!! (I promise to get it there in one piece too)
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