Hellcat Cake - Charger or Challenger - I'm not sure

I'm not sure if this cake is a Hellcat Charger or a Hellcat Challenger.  LOL  Actually when I made the cake I didn't even know they were two different cars!  So all you car fanatics, please forgive me if I don't have the details correct.  My Hellcat Cake is probably a mashup of the Charger and the Challenger.  

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The first thing I made for this cake were the wheels.  I made an embossing tool to resemble the rims, and simply pressed that into black fondant mixed with Tylose Powder (aka CMC and Gum Tex Powder).  After the wheel dried, I painted the "rim" area with edible silver luster dust mixed with Everclear grain alcohol.  (Note: I use my super cool Creality Ender 3 V2 3D printer to make the embosser and cutters that I used on this cake.  It is my favorite cake decorating tool.  If you want to read more about it, click HERE.)

Next I carved and crumb coated the cake. I printed out several paper templates of the car: side, top, front, rear, and then I used the templates to trim the cake into a car shape.  Once the shape looked reasonable, I crumb coated and chilled the cake.

After the cake was chilled, I used a cutter I made with my 3D printer to cutout sections for the wheel wells.  I could have used just a circle cutter, but on the car template I used, the wheel wells where more oval shaped.  And I use any excuse I find to use my 3D printer.

In hindsight I made a serious mistake on this cake.  Typically when I cover a cake in fondant, I crumb coat in ganache instead of buttercream.  The ganache dries as a hard shell and keeps the carved cake from drooping and sagging.  I decided not to use ganache on this cake because it was cold outside and I thought it would be okay.   Mistake!   Big Mistake!  

But anyway, after the wheel wells, I added some fondant detail that would actually go under the fondant used to cover the cake.  

Here is the fondant going on.  Just drape it over the cake and smooth into all the nooks and crannies.  It was actually easier to cover this odd shaped cake than it was to cover a round cake.

And here is the fondant all smoothed.  You can see how the fondant was pushed in around the front grill.  I could have added the grills later, but I thought it would look more seamless this way.   BUT just look at how the fondant is sweating.  This was the first hint of the problems I was going to have with this cake.  The fondant was absorbing the moisture from the buttercream below it.  This usually doesn't happen with ganache because the white chocolate ganache doesn't have much moisture in it.  

I also used the wheel well cutter to cut through the blue fondant and replace it with black.  And notice the car is looking lumpier the longer it sits out at room temperature.  Sigh.  I should have taken the fondant off and coated with ganache, but at this point I still thought it would be okay.

I also had some cutters that I used to cut out the windows and replace the area with black fondant.  I thought this would look better than just placing the black fondant on top of the blue.  The shape of the front windshield came out a little odd looking.  In the end I cut the top of the windshield out a little wider.

Here I started putting on the black accents.  I used Choco-Pan Black Modeling Chocolate for this.  The modeling chocolate has a firmer texture and doesn't pull out of shape like fondant does.  Modeling Chocolate is great for detail work.  And notice car is looking lumpier and lumpier.  At this point I put the cake in the refrigerator to chill and harden up some.

While the cake was chilling, I started working on the cake drum.  I marbled some brown fondant with bits of other colors (yellow, white, black- extra bits I had in my salvage bin).  Once the fondant was rolled flat, I used an impression mat to give it a wood-like texture, and then cut the fondant into 1" wide planks using a strip cutter.

The planks were placed on the cake drum. I used a little piping gel to help glue the fondant strips to the board.

And here is the finished cake drum.  I dusted the groves with black and white powder food color to make it the look more like wood. 

Sadly I was so stressed about my lumpy cake that I forgot to take any more pictures.  But at this point I was just putting one the finishing touches.  On the rear of the car I made a spoiler (which I don't think the car actually has), tail lights, exhaust pipes, and a license plate.  I was going to write the birthday boy's name on the license plate, but the fondant was so damp I thought the edible markers might run. 

On the front I added some windshield wipers, head lights, and a grill.  I dusted the lights and grill with some silver edible powder to give it that shiny look.  I also dusted some silver on the windshield to give it more of a glass-like appearance. 

So all-in-all this is not the worst cake I've made, but not the best.   Someone has requested a Mustang GT cake for mid April.  Rest assured, I will crumb coat with ganache.  I don't want another lumpy muscle car cake.

Happy Decorating,

Carol

White Orchids on a Navy and White Cake

Technique-wise there is nothing elaborate or complicated about this cake, but nevertheless I love how it came out.  It looks elegant, and I normally suck at making elegant.  LOL.   The customer ordered a cake for his wife's 30th birthday, and he was very specific about what he wanted: navy and white marbled for the bottom tier, white for the top tier, and 2-3 white orchids.  That is it.  He wanted simple and elegant.  

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For the orchids I used a cutter and veiner set, and I used this veining board to help insert the wire into the petals.   I also cut the 3 pronged Sepal piece into three separate petals and wired each one individually.  Making the flowers was actually an easy process.

I used pink edible marker to draw the lines and dots on the Lip of the flower, and I dusted the edge of the Lip with some yellow petal dust. 

On construction day I stacked my cakes and iced them using white chocolate ganache.  I always use ganache under fondant because it gives a firmer base than buttercream.  I also use acrylic cake disks to get the razor sharp edges.  If you want to read more about the process, click HERE.  

For the marbled tier I used Carma Massa Ticcino fondant.  I refrigerate my cakes and live in a hot/humid environment so I need a fondant that won't sweat and sag when it hits 100 degree F temperatures, but sadly I've been told this fondant has been discontinued.    Anyway, I made three shades of navy using Wilton's Royal Blue and a touch of Black.  (The color came out a little too bright to be true Navy, so I might have to try Americolor's Navy Blue next time.)  For the 10" base tier I need 800 grams of fondant so I marbled 700 grams of white with my 3 premixed shades of  navy (100 g total of navy).  I didn't combine the colors too much because I wanted the marbling to be sharp.  I also put some gold accent lines where the darker navy lines met the white.  I mixed gold luster dust with Everclean and painted on the lines with a very thin brush. 

I stacked the tiers and added some white sugar pearls at the base of the top tier, and then I just added the branch of orchids to the cake.  See, easy as cake.   :-) 

Happy Decorating,

Carol

Groom's Deer Head Cake (or is it a Buck or Stag Head?) - See how it was made.

I'm not sure if this should be call a Deer, Buck or Stag Head Cake.  Whatever you call it, this is what the bride decide would be the perfect cake for her hunting obsessed groom.  

I started with a outline drawing of the deer that was a combination of several drawings I found.  This is the antler.

And the head.

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After I had the outline, I loaded the image into the CookieCad.com app to generate a file that I could use on my 3D printer.  Below is one of the cutters being printed.  I printed one cutter for just the outline and one cutter with all the features.  Yes, I could have just used a paper templet, but then I wouldn't be able to use my nifty Creality Ender 3 V2 printer.  If you want to read more about 3D printing, click HERE.

When it came time to make the head out of fondant, I started with the antlers because they looked the easiest.  I created an armature of the antler shape using wire and bamboo skewers.  The antlers were a little fragile looking, so that is why I added the armature for support.  Once the armature was ready, I mixed brown fondant with some CMC powder.  The CMC powder (also called Gum-Tex and Tylose powder) makes the fondant harden into a rock-like substance.  The more powder you add, the harder the fondant will become.  Once the brown fondant was mixed with the CMC, I added a little bit of black and gray fondant and marbled the colors together.

I used the antler cutter to cut a piece of brown fondant and pushed the armature into it.

Then I cut another fondant antler and used it to cover the front of the armature.  I used a bit of water to glue the two layers of fondant together.

A dresden tool was used to score some grooves into the fondant to give it a more realistic look. (They kind of look like snapping fingers don't they??)

The head came next.  I started with a brown fondant base and then just started layering the other pieces on top of it.

Once I got to this point I placed the head on an 8" foam dummy so it would dry with a curved shape to match the cake.  You might also notice some accents/facial features on this photo of the head didn't make the final cut.  At some point I decided I didn't like the blackish-brown "hair" around the ears, so that got pulled off and replaced it with something different.  The face was a work in progress.  I would put things on and take them off till I got something I liked.

When I started assembling the cake, I attached a bamboo skewer to the back of the deer head using melted candy melts.  I also used a chocolate freeze spray  which hardens the melted chocolate in seconds.  This stuff is great.  Without the spray, it would take 30 minutes for the chocolate to harden.  I attached the antlers to the head with the same melted candy melts. 

After the final spritz with the chocolate freeze spray, the head and antlers went onto the cake.  I secured the head to the cake and the cake drum with more melted chocolate and a ball of green fondant.   (See at this point I removed the fringy hair from around the ears.)

Final step was to add some greenery around the head.  I wanted the deer to look like he was walking through the forest rather than dead and mounted.

So here is the cake all finished.  I hope the groom likes it!

Happy Decorating,

Carol