A client came in wanting a cake in the shape of a Porsche with some extra detailing in the sponsor decals. So I set about building a Porsche. From chocolate cake and butter cream icing.
Day One:
I spent some time with the small model the client provided. I treated it like I was building an Architectural model and each quarter inch on the model became an inch on the cake. It took about 4 hours to get the cake carved and iced with a crumb coat of butter cream icing in the shape of the car. This was refrigerated overnight and in the morning I had a nice firm surface to work with.
I also created a few things from fondant that needed to dry overnight. I made a small driver’s side mirror, a tail pipe, door handles, and headlights from grey fondant and left them out to dry. I also made four tires out of black fondant. These hardened overnight.
Day Two:
I started by carving out a portion of the underbody and removing the cake where the tires would go and creating wheel wells. Then I iced all of the lower part of the car and wheel wells in black and added the front fenders.
The next step was to ice the rest of the cake in yellow so I matched the color in a photograph the client brought in. I carefully piped on the yellow butter cream and smoothed it around the curves of the car with a palette knife. It was a time consuming process but it worked out nicely. Then I rolled out grey fondant for the windows. This bakery does not use an airbrush so I had to leave the windows plain but I did glaze them to make them shine. After the windows were on I finished off the roof icing and the body of the car, now it was all about the details.
The next step was to outline the doors and panels of glass and the front and rear hoods. I put on the fondant headlights and fondant tires with butter cream rims. The fenders went on next, followed by the lights in front and back and on the sides. I added the fondant door handles, mirror, and tail pipe after I was sure they were dry enough to stick into the cake without breaking. I made a fondant license plate for the back and a tiny little Porsche emblem for the front hood. It was starting to look like a car. And clients in the bakery were beginning to take notice.
Day Three:
The basic car was finished, and it was time to deal with the logo decals. There was quite a list of logos and other details she wanted added to the cake so I had to make sure I didn’t miss anything. The top got a grocery store logo, the front hood had a car dealer company logo, the back got a tire company logo. There were two other logos on the rear fenders. We don’t have a “copy cake machine” (which is like an overhead projector) so I created each of these logos freehand. The client wanted a number 40 on each door for her son’s 40th birthday and his name above each door.
The final touch was to mix a finely powered silver into an edible medium and paint the chrome on the car with a small artist’s brush. It’s the kind of thing that is really fun to do because it is a small thing that makes a big difference in how the cake looks. So the handles, mirror, bumpers, tail pipe and hub caps all got a nice coat of “chrome.” Even the tiny little “911S” on the back got chrome.
I added windshield wipers a little later – after I had taken the last photographs. At the client’s request I also added some additional detailing to the tiny little 3/8 inch Porsche emblem on the front hood.
The client picked up the cake on Saturday and asked if there was any way to “petrify” a cake because they wanted to be able to keep it. She was really pleased with how it turned out and paid the big price tag without even blinking. Apparently they had no plan to cut it or eat it even though it is delicious chocolate cake inside. I saw her again this morning and the cake has not been cut. I assured her that it really was time to cut it and serve it.
It took me about 10 hours to create this cake. The inside is chocolate with white butter cream. The details are fondant. The cake would serve about forty people – if they ever cut it. And we charged her $256.00. That was an interesting challenge and I enjoyed it.
]]>