Sunday, September 5, 2010

Another Status Update

The problem with making huge, detailed cakes is you spend weeks prepping them. My next competition cake will be done 1 week from today.  I've been working on different pieces of this cake for weeks already.  Here's where I am now:



I was up past 1 last night finishing up the dusting, steaming and glazing for all the roses and leaves-- hydrangea leaves are the big ones and the smaller ones are rose leaves.


The pictures legitimately don't do the roses justice.  They are much brighter in real life.  I dusted all 32 of them last night.  And steamed them.


You know you're OCD when you actually add thorns.  ;)

 
You can see some brooches I'm working on in the bottom of this picture.

The pictures don't do the hydrangea justice either.  They're actually all dusted with no less than 4 different colors. 


The dendrobium orchids are actually a very light pink on the edges... which you can't see in the pic. :(


Final count: 27 fully blown roses, 1 mid sized rose, 5 tight rose buds, 60 pearled stephanotis, 122 hydrangea, 22 hydrangea buds, 18 dendrobium orchids, 18 hydrangea leaves, and 14 rose leaves.

I also made isomalt gems today:

Isomalt is a sugar substitute known for its clarity.  However, if you overcook it, it starts to yellow, which is why some of the gems are like low-grade diamonds. ;)

More of today's labors:


 

And I made a custom board for the cake:


It has feet, so you can get your fingers under it to lift it:



All this and I haven't even started baking yet! :oP 

Don't worry-- I'll be sure to get better pictures of the final product next week before the show.  In the mean time, trust that I haven't fallen off the planet.  Quite the contrary, I'm busily caking away! 

In case you haven't heard yet, I did not win anything in Threadcakes.  I wasn't expecting to, so it's alright.  The important thing was that I tackled a really big 3D cake project and I was happy with the outcome.  At the end of the day, it didn't seem to be in the same style as the winning entries.  Sometimes you have to make a trade-off between doing what you want to do and what you think the judges will most appreciate.  That said, I hope the judges appreciate this cake I'm working on now, hahaha.... :) 

Enjoy the rest of your Labor Day weekend!  



3 comments:

  1. Oh Wow Roxanne!
    You need a helper just to count your leaves and gems.
    Heck, you need a pit crew.
    Best of Luck.

    xx mom

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  2. I was at the cake competition today and your work was wonderful! I didn't stay till the end, who won?
    Best,
    Terry

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  3. Very good it was perfect
    very nice cake

    ReplyDelete