Cake - General - HitFilm Community

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NuttyBanana

Posted 12 February 2012 - 11:29 PM Link to post

A bit random but thought I'd share this anyway. We just celebrated my sons 4th birthday, and him having such great taste requested a marshmallow man cake.

Well I did some clay modelling back at school and have never been able to try it again as much as I'm eager to and thought this would be a good opportunity to flex those muscles.

I've never worked with cake before and I'm pretty chuffed how it turned out. Apart from learning how heavy the icing is - hence the "supports" for his arms, everything turned out as much as well as I'd hoped. It took me 5 hours believe it or not and by 2am I was passing out and so the smashed concrete was a bit rushed.

Has anyone done anything like this before? Me and my wife have become a little hooked and are looking at doing this a few more times and maybe moving it onto being a paid hobby.

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Aculag

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Posted 13 February 2012 - 01:24 AM Link to post

Awesome job! Did you use fondant? Kinda looks like it must be mostly icing... Tell us more about the process!

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NuttyBanana

Posted 13 February 2012 - 09:09 AM Link to post

Like I said, I'm no cook but as far as the sponge goes all I can say is that it's a vanilla/chocolate mix and very doey so rather easy to work with.

Everything external is fondant. I used up the best part of 2kg of white, then had some coloured fondant blocks that I used to do the blue and red parts. Everything contains cake apart from the fingers. Had I known as much when I started I'd have opted for a lighter sponge covered in sugar gum for the arms to keep the weight of them down and them be more sturdy.

Not much more to tell really. Everything is held together with a few skewers, the eyes were done with a pen containing edible ink and the concrete was the remaining white fondant coloured with a touch of high concentrate black food dye with the cracks done (poorly) with a skewer dipped in the black dye.

He got a lot of attention and right now he's pretty much down to just the body remaining as everyone has a bite as they go past lol. The candle at the birthday ended up going into the concrete in from of him as noone could bring themselves to stick it in his head - how weak!

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Daniel G Wood

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Posted 13 February 2012 - 09:25 AM Link to post

Well, this is probably my favourite thread on the HitFilm forums so far.

That's an amazing piece of work sir! Almost a crime to eat it, though I would do my best to do just that in a single sitting. Awesome cake-sculptures were one of the best parts about being a kid, mine tended to be Thunderbirds-themed.

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Simon K Jones

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Posted 13 February 2012 - 09:33 AM Link to post

Hehe, very nice indeed. I have a couple of friends who specialise in custom cakes like this, I'm always impressed with what people can do with this kinda stuff.

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guitar74

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Posted 13 February 2012 - 10:46 AM Link to post

That is a wicked cake!! Great Job, I bet you hated to cut into it!

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NuttyBanana

Posted 13 February 2012 - 11:33 AM Link to post

Hehe thanks. I haven't done anything to it or had a single piece. I knew the time had to come tho so knowing how relentless children are I asked our 2 boys if they wanted one of his fingers. Within 5 seconds they'd ripped his arms off! My wife took a big bite out of the top of his hat and the boys finished that and his head off later on.

We'll be having a gathering in rememberance of him if anyone would like to join us :smile:

It's was good fun tho and I'm looking out for birthdays among family and friends for an excuse to do another.

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NuttyBanana

Posted 13 February 2012 - 12:01 PM Link to post

My mum just text to tell me to send a picture to loose women (of all tv shows) as Dan Aykroyd is on. My wife's tweeted it to them and I'll be giggling like a lIttle school girl if they actually show it to him lol.

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Ady

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Posted 13 February 2012 - 12:10 PM Link to post

Awesome stuff, well done! I don't suppose it would survive if you sent me a piece in the mail? :tongue:

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NuttyBanana

Posted 13 February 2012 - 01:40 PM Link to post

Awesome stuff, well done! I don't suppose it would survive if you sent me a piece in the mail?

Thanks! I'm not too sure that it would! Not much to show for it now though, you'd just end up with a bit of cake with some icing left on the side.

Wasn't expecting them to show the photo but they only gave him 2 comments from the public which was a bit of a let down. Apparently they normally go through a lot more with their guests. Never mind!

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MasterWolf

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Posted 13 February 2012 - 01:44 PM Link to post

Have you ever watched the show Cake Boss? They often use cereal bars ( rice crispy treats ) for parts of their cakes that need to be strong, yet light. This may work better for the arms.

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Simon K Jones

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Posted 13 February 2012 - 02:02 PM Link to post

We'll be having a gathering in rememberance of him if anyone would like to join us

Will there be cake?

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Daniel G Wood

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Posted 13 February 2012 - 02:05 PM Link to post

Have you ever watched the show Cake Boss?

There's a show specifically about making awesome cake sculptures? Where has this been all my life?!

EDIT: Or is this about bosses who are made of confectionery? That would also be fun.

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NuttyBanana

Posted 13 February 2012 - 02:36 PM Link to post

Have you ever watched the show Cake Boss? They often use cereal bars ( rice crispy treats ) for parts of their cakes that need to be strong, yet light. This may work better for the arms.

Good idea! Will bear that in mind if I do attempt another.

Will there be cake?

Naturally

There's a show specifically about making awesome cake sculptures? Where has this been all my life?!

EDIT: Or is this about bosses who are made of confectionery? That would also be fun.

Indeedy there is! There's a few I know of - Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes. I think FX show them on Sky but I might be wrong. They're quite over-dramatised at times but fun to watch.

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StormyKnight

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Posted 13 February 2012 - 03:40 PM Link to post

WOW! I never got a cake like that when growing up. Mine were all rectangularly (is that a word? lol) boring. Sometimes they were round.
With talent like that you SHOULD turn it into a paying hobby. Go for it!

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NuttyBanana

Posted 13 February 2012 - 05:18 PM Link to post

I know what you mean StormyKnight. My mum did actually try really hard to pull something out but it was generally just sponge and creamy icing. I got hooked wondering what I could do with roll out icing/fondant and the results are as above. I've been asked to do a star wars cake so I'm wondering what I can do with that now....

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Aculag

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Posted 13 February 2012 - 06:28 PM Link to post

Indeedy there is! There's a few I know of - Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes. I think FX show them on Sky but I might be wrong. They're quite over-dramatised at times but fun to watch.

I've never heard of Cake Boss, but Ace of Cakes is a lot of fun. They have some pretty quirky people doing some pretty quirky stuff on that show, and that looks like the greatest job in the world.

They made this cake for the 100th episode of Lost.
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Aculag

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Posted 13 February 2012 - 06:28 PM Link to post

Edit: Crap. Posting finger working overtime.

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Biq

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Posted 13 February 2012 - 09:07 PM Link to post

Now all you have to do is animate it! :biggrin:

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NuttyBanana

Posted 14 February 2012 - 12:05 PM Link to post

I've seen that Lost cake before, it's pretty awesome, but I don't think it's too complicated to do at all. I recently discovered that you can print onto sugar paper with a regular printer, just replacing the ink cartridges with those containing edible ink! I thought it would be a more specialist thing than that, although it needs to be a dedicated printer and not one you use for work or anything lol.

As for animating the marshmallow man, it's a bit late for that!

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