Internal Structures
Do I know what I'm doing?
Absolutely not.
This hot mess is how I'm practicing for next month's cake competition (http://thattakesthecake.org/). For the past few nights my kitchen table has been subjected to some serious prototyping. Since this is for competition, I'm going to keep some details on the down-low. After the show I'll discuss my designs more in depth.
This is the first prototype for a 3D sculpted cake of a cartoon character. He will be standing straight up and will hopefully stay that way for several days.
Here's what I started with.
Stats:
- 8", 7", and 2 6" rounds of doctored Spice cake
- Rice Krispie Treats
- Wilton Decorator's Buttercream Icing
- big ole piece of scrap wood
- 2 1/2" galvanized floor flanges
- 1/2" PVC piping, some threaded, some not
- several 1/2" PVC couplers
- PVC cutter
- foam core
- modeling chocolate
- fondant
I want the body to be in at least 2 parts: top and bottom. Things will be so much easier if I can deal with half of him at a time. The idea is that later on in the process he will be glued together.
Initially I hot-glued couplers on to foam core and fit them over the PVC. After one night the couplers popped right off and I was left with a saggy waist.
Wilton icing is all kinds of gross to the nose and tongue, but it's actually really nice to spread. I bought a 4.5 lb bucket with a 50% coupon at Michaels.
I did not make the entire cake; there's not enough time or resources at the moment to push this prototype much farther.
Notes:
- buy more flanges
- buy a 1/2" thin pipe to help core cake to be put on structure
- get thicker base wood
- get thin wood to go in the middle
- re-design how PVC fits together
- bake twice as much cake
- make twice as much Rice Krispie treats
- let chill after crumb coating, then do another layer of buttercream to help smooth him out
- use a mixture of fondant and modeling chocolate instead of just fondant
- decorate the board around the flanges so his feet can be flush ... somehow
- his head needs to be Rice Krispie treats as a base
I'm trying to figure out how to make a flamingo stand up on one leg ( and then the make the body out of rice krispies). Any advice? I also have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to structures. I know it's inevitable that a customer will ask for one, so I'm making this for my birthday. That way when I have an epic failure, I won't have too much of a meltdown. LOL!
ReplyDeleteI've learned that rice cereal treats don't necessarily stick to pvc! Next time I'll be using more melted candy coating or chocolate to act as a glue. I watched a demo where the lady showed us 2 pvc pipes, one inside the other. The outer one was cut shorter. She would then slip on a circular board, then sandwich it between the first outer pipe and then another pipe on top. So there's a center pipe, and then the outer pipes holding a plate. Then she capped it off with a pipe cap. Does that make sense??
ReplyDeleteDo you remember where this demo is at? I'd like to watch it too.
ReplyDeleteit was a live demo at a cake show/competition
ReplyDelete