Twice in Two Days!

Try not to get excited, dear reader. The fact that I am going to post two days in a row is not a renewal of my earlier pledge. I think we have proven that I will not be able to maintain this torrid pace.

I do have more cake pictures to share, so I thought I would put them out there.

This cake was made for my friend the Mangler. Her birthday was June 22nd, and she requested a yellow cake with chocolate icing. She even said I could use the frosting out of a can. A CAN, people! Heresy!

I ended up making her a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, but, being me, I couldn't leave well enough alone. I ended up making a really yummy chocolate frosting. It is basically a fluffy ganache. The Mangler doesn't like super sweet icings, and this one is a bit lighter than the standard buttercream.

Naturally, I couldn't leave well enough alone and just write "Happy Birthday Mangler" on the cake. So dull, so trite! I ended up trying the Frozen Buttercream Transfer (hereafter referred to as FBCT) process that went so horribly awry on the Lizard's Elvis cake. No, I don't learn from my mistakes. I just keep right on making them.

The FBCT process sounds complicated, but is pretty easy, if time consuming. It is a way to get a more complicated picture on a cake without having to draw it freehand. Super if you want to put a character on a cake, or match the napkins for a party, or whatever.

Basically, you take an image and reverse it, then tape it down to something that is sturdy and will fit in the freezer (that is where the "frozen" part comes in). In this case, I took the picture that I wanted, and taped it to the window, then traced over it. This gave me an exact copy, so I flipped my tracing over, taped it to the window again and copied over the lines, giving me my mirror image. Ordinarily, this type of image manipulation is best done on a computer, but I was lazy, and have old fashioned tendencies anyway. Plus, it really freaked out my neighbors.

I then taped my mirror image onto a circle of cardboard and covered the whole thing with waxed paper. I should buy stock in 3M. I don't know anyone else who could run through this much tape baking a cake.

Once I had my circle of fun, I began piping white icing in the appropriate areas of the image. I was lucky in that the image only required three colors. Once I was done with the white, I put the cardboard in the freezer and wandered off to do something else.

Recalled to my duties (I know, I know, I said "duty", but this is the Mangler's cake, so it works), I pulled the circle out of the freezer, and added the medium color in the appropriate spots and shoved it back in the freezer. One more round trip to add the dark color, and I was done!

After I pulled the final image out of the freezer, I peeled the waxed paper off of the cardboard, and peeked under to see what would be the top of my design. I was looking for holes or light spots, found a few and slathered more icing. Back in the freezer until it was cake time.

I had previously torted and iced the Mangler's cake, knowing that I wanted to slap my image on the top, then add a border.

I placed my hand (my freshly washed, super-sanitary hand) on the top/back of the image and flipped it over (cardboard up). I then was able to take off the cardboard, leaving me with a handful of icing covered in waxed paper. I gently centered my icing disk onto the cake and removed my hand.

Now for the tricky part; removing the waxed paper. This is where Elvis had refused to leave the building on my earlier attempt. I took a moment, quieted my mind and entered a zen-like state. I would like to tell you that I grabbed one corner and peeled that sucker off like someone pulling the tablecloth out from under a place setting for 12. What actually happened was that I grabbed one corner with extreme trepidation and tugged oh so gingerly and watched with startled amazement as it pulled free with no impediment. I do wish I had done it with a bit more flair, though. Maybe next time.

To make a long, boring post even longer, I managed to add a border around the top and bottom of the cake and pack it up for delivery.

I took it to the restaurant where we were celebrating the Mangler's birthday. I almost had a stroke when one of the servers started to walk out with it, to cut it, before anyone had even SEEN it. Mercifully, my agitated shrieking stayed his course, and we were all able to stare down at it's unmolested state.

So, here it is.

For those of you not from Louisiana, this is the "eye of the tiger" that LSU paints in the center of their football field. The Mangler is a huge LSU fan. (The colors are purple and gold, but the restaurant was quite dark.)

Hope the pics are worth the 73 pages of rambling prose!