Cakeman Raven, Ella's Birthday and that Chocolate Plastique Skull I Said I'd Post About

So this past Saturday I get a phone call from a number I'd labeled "Cakeman" way back when I auditioned for a position as decorator at Cakeman Raven's bakery warehouse. I had long given up hope of hearing back from that bakery since in my experience it doesn't usually take several months to get a call-back for bakeshop jobs. But they needed somebody to fill in for their regular decorator who's on vacation now, and I've been asked to stay on until I leave for New Mexico at the end of June!

Kiara's Oscar cake is my first confection completed for Cakeman Raven, and I gotta be honest, as much as I liked working on it and how it turned out, I kinda feel like a tool. I'm not into incorporating popular culture (like cartoon characters, designer fashion, or AHEM the Oscar Awards) in my cake designs AT ALL. Buuuuut it's completely out of my hands at Cakeville! Ugh. I've sold my soul.

What really killed me on this cake was the stairs; they came out well, but were the source of a substantial amount of hair-loss. They had to be carved into the cake (with the excess pieces used to create the bottom step), augmented with the bakery's RIDICULOUSLY soft cream cheese icing, and then very carefully covered in fondant and poked and prodded into shape. The red carpet had to be cut to measured specifications out of red fondant that I colored myself, then laid over the first layer of fondant and fixed in place with royal icing. It took so long! Thank god it came out, and while I'm at it, THANK GOD FOR ROYAL ICING. Fluffy gold.


Here's the sign, looking a little washed out (thanks flash), but it still looks good! Okay, a little rough, but I'd never made a sign like this before. The base is a piece of cardboard with two skewers taped to it. I coated the board in royal icing (seriously... so useful) and then red fondant. It held perfectly even though I put together just hours before it was delivered to the Cakeman Raven storefront to be picked up by Kiara's fam. That's cutting things a little close for me, but hey, it got done.


I'ma give a shout-out to the Cakeville crew for being so supportive while I toiled for three days over this beast of a layered confection. You guys are awesome! Go team!

Ummmm..... yeah.

Okay, I figured I should probably knock this other cake out while I'm in a bloggy mood. This is a cake I made last week for the birthday of the little girl I babysit. Ella wanted a Dora the Explorer cake. Mmhm. We all know how I feel about that kind of thing (ugh, brand loyalty. ugh, marketing to children!!!). So she got a weird sky-cake covered in 3D butterflies on top of which I sort of unceremoniously propped a plastic Dora doll (NOT pictured). On the plus side, the detrimental effects of this exposure to corporate advertising were blunted by the fact that the doll remained in place on the cake for a scant four seconds before it was whisked away by some kid (who was not Ella), who had also just blown out most of the candles. In fact, I believe Dora hardly registered as Ella spent the moments between the birthday song and the cutting of the cake struggling to secure a candle for herself before they all disappeared into the outstretched hands of her cluster of friends. MAN, kids are brats! One little fella didn't even wait for the candles to be blown out before he started picking butterflies off the cake and shoving them into his mouth! But Ella was an absolute angel, and not a tear was shed! Good for her, because I would have thrown a sh•t fit if my friends wrecked on my cake like that. Happy Birthday Lola!!!

All piping including the 3D butterflies done in royal icing! Seriously, is there anything it can't do???

And finally, I present to you that chocolate plastique skull that I said I would post about back in January. It's kinda metal in that cakey/candy sorta way I like.



Because the skull itself was not metal enough, I added horns. Rams' horns.


THERE it is. Metal. Also, that selfsame skull is still sitting in my room at this very moment. As a matter of fact, I am contemplating it as I type. I wanna see how long it'll last. Right now it's dry as a bone (haha) but how will it fare in humid weather? I guess I'll find out! Science! (That one's for you, PKC)

Coming up next time: cakes shaped like dice? Apparently, according to my manager at Cakeville. Better start googling stuff like... how to make cake shaped like dice...