Let me start off with a confession: As the kid who was always picked last for… well, everything, really… I’ve never won anything that involved a popular vote. EVER.

As a kid, it was because I was “weird” (Aspergers). That was ok, they were all JUST as weird to me! As an adult, it’s always been a mix of logistical concerns (Only taking on no more than 2 cakes per week puts one at a disadvantage against companies that churn out 60+ cakes per week!), and – again – being “weird”. I’m mouthy. I have turquoise hair. I *refuse* to “play the game”, and I don’t kiss anyone’s butt. When it comes to the wedding industry… yeah, no popular vote winning, for me! Usually, such popular votes are for totally meaningless awards, so I’ve never minded. Here’s the thing though. I’ve entered the Food & Wine Show’s “Czar of Cakes” competition again this year. (Past year’s entries are here and here.) This year, things have changed… and I need your help. More on that in a bit, More on that in a bit, first let me ply you with cake photos!

Ok, so back to the competition, and the changes: For one, the competition is actually online, with only the winner being display at the show. Secondly, an online vote is part of the actual judging, and helps decide who wins. Also, on a more personal note… it’s the first time I’ve ever really taken a competition seriously.

Past years, I went for shock value, or being funny. In addition to the above mentioned cakes, there was also the time I entered a “Tremors” themed wedding cake in a fancy chocolate show. I mean, they had to be animal themed. Grabboids are animals, right?

What can I say, I like to have fun with it, stretch some creative muscles, and be ABSOLUTELY SURE that no one else will show up with a similar interpretation of the theme. This year, due to the changes in the way the show is run, I threw all of that out the window and decided to risk theme duplication, get serious with it, and actually try to win. Well, I’ve done all I can – I am SUPER happy with the way the cake turned out, and now … it’s out of my hands.

I would really like to win this competition. “Czar of Cakes” has a nice ring to it, and after losing 9 months of cookbook marketing time to tornado repair, the prize – which includes an ad in Minnesota Monthly – would be awesome for me. If you visit the site HERE, and think that my cake deserves to win… please take a second and vote for it. I am completely freaked out at the idea of an internet vote, and can use all the help I can get, LOL!

Hey, if the internet can make my kitchen FAMOUS, maybe it can help me win a popular vote for once in my life! LOL!

Now, some fun facts about the cake:

- The theme for the competition is “Food and Wine”, and theming the cake around that is really the online guideline we’re to abide by.

- Everything you see, with the exception of the marble tile cake board, is edible. Aside from the cake board, the only other non-edible thing is the very interior of the cake. Like the vast majority of competition cakes, it had to be done in styrofoam. The photos were due last week, and the winning cake needs to be displayed at the show on March 3rd. Real cake doesn’t last that long

- The “sake bottle” is molded from sugar, and even the label – fondant, painted with food coloring – is edible.

- The plate, chopsticks, cup, and mini bottle are made from gum paste.

- All of the sushi, as well as the “wood” is made from homemade fondant, which I divided and individually tinted to over a dozen colors. No color you see is “straight out of a bottle”, I had to custom blend colors for it all!

- The shrimp, as well as 2 of the other types of sushi are hand painted.

- Everything is hand rolled, hand shaped, etc. The only tools I used were a rolling pin, a paint brush, and my own hands.

- The “rice” is Rice Crispy Treat.

- Everything is approximately life sized, based on a large (about 3′ across) sushi boat.

- I marbled together 3 custom tinted colors of fondant to create the wood grain effect.

Whew! Fingers are crossed here. I made it through the first big stressor (no one submitted a sushi cake!), and now it’s just a matter of WAITING. Augh!!

UPDATE: I WON!! click here for more details.

A few weeks ago, our friend Tara invited us to her “End of the World as We Know It” birthday party – scheduled for the day after this most recent “rapture” date. Well, we all know what happened to my husband and I the day after the LAST scheduled rapture, so I was already a teeny bit nervous about this date. Trust me, I had no idea how horrifying and twisted the day would become. You see, our friend wanted a Cake Wreck for her birthday. As I was BEYOND finished with decorating cakes, my husband graciously stepped up to the plate. … the man has never decorated a cake in his life.

Due to the nature of the cake theme – you know about Cake Wrecks, right? – I was woefully unequipped for my husband to get his decorating on. No, to do a cake of this wrecktitude, it would require a trip to the cake shop, and the purchase of – shudder – Wilton stuff. I’m pretty sure “Wilton” was the name of one of the lesser known fifth horsemen of the apocalypse. Yes. Pestilence, War, Famine, Death, and Wilton Fondant.

I digress. You’ll have to excuse me, I’m a little scarred at the moment. Shamed. Forgive me, Lambeth, for I have sinned – I not only bought “Tuk-N-Ruffle” (Yes, it really is spelled like that!), I USED IT. On a CAKE.

Yes, I baked and assembled the cake, filling and frosting it with a base coat of swiss meringue buttercream. I took my husband to a cake decorating supply store, and let him run wild. I let him know what was available, what things were used for what, and … that was that. This wreck was all his, and I was NOT to give any design direction.

There is nothing more adorable than a fully grown male geek with ADD, let loose in a cake decorating shop. Nothing. There are just so many funky things that can be put on a cake, many of which are hilarious and/or horrifying. Usually unintentionally so! He was like a kid in a candy store!

He spent the evening before his big decorating debut in research mode. He looked through the cake wrecks website, read the advice from some of our Facebook Fans (“Write instructions on the cake!”, “Misspelled words!”, “Have writing trailing off the side of the cake!”, etc). He spent some time reading the Engrish.com website for inspiration.

As you can see, he turned out a respectably bizarre and disturbing cake. Naked babies riding carrot torpedos right at a surrendering chick in a corset top. Creepy clowns looking up from the side of the cake with their dead-yet-sadistic gaze. Apostrophe abuse. Instructions. Misspelling.

During the decorating process, there was a lot of giggling. There was a lot of less than sane/mature/SFW commentary. As we’d recently picked up a little camcorder, we decided that this would be an excellent excuse to make a youtube video. Check out the Youtube Playlist of the whole process. Don’t say I didn’t warn you about the immaturity, NSFW-ness, etc

Somehow, I don’t think Food Network is going to be offering us a show anytime soon.

But… The birthday girl loved it! Happy birthday, Tara!

So, the Minnesota Monthly Food & Wine Show – and its “Czar of Cakes” competition – happened several months ago. I’m stuck on what to blog today, so I figure it’s about time for me to blog about my cake competition entry! Kinda lame, seeing as how I was pretty good about blogging about it up UNTIL the event!

As with last year, I wanted to go for a theme that no one else would be doing… behold, my “White Trash Cuisine” cake!

I figured … hey, they’re paying like $80 a ticket to get in to this fancy show, going this way with it will guarantee it’ll stand out!

Well, it did… but I was actually shocked at the response. Surrounded by all kinds of yummy, high end food providers, TONS of people were copping to loving Totino’s & Velveeta. Uhm… what? Definitely caught me off guard!

The “fried chicken” is made from rice krispy treats, everything is covered with fondant and hand painted / airbrushed / etc with food coloring.

The wine bottles are made from sugar, and are entirely edible! For the labels, I scanned an actual label, cleaned it up in photoshop (That was a TON of work!), then had it printed onto a frosting sheet!

For judges taster cake, I whipped up a batch of my Spumoni Cake Recipe, straight from Evil Cake Overlord. It went over super well with at least one of the judges, who declared that I could open a cake shop in Brooklyn based on the strength of this flavor alone!

I may not have won the title, but I had a lot of fun with this cake. In addition to putting it up on cinderblocks for a cake stand (LOL!), I also rigged a teeny set of hidden speakers to play “Dueling Bangos” during judging!

Yesterday was a day that I’ve been looking forward to for a very long time. I delivered my very last wedding cake! You see, my retiring from cakes was something that had to be worked out carefully, 2+ years in advance. I stopped advertising in wedding media. I stopped taking mainstream orders, choosing to just work with nerds and geeks. I slowed, then stopped taking orders – quietly – so I could finish off the majority of my remaining contracts without adding to the work load. Eventually, I made it to the next step . Made the big announcement, and publicly was off the market for cakes at that time. There were still a couple cakes still on the horizon for friends, as favors, etc. Nevertheless, at that point, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. As of yesterday, I’m done. DONE. Man, it feels good. So, let me tell you about the cake, the bride, and the retirement.

First off, it wasn’t just the fact that this is my LAST cake that had me looking forward to this cake. The bride and groom were AWESOME. Brittany and Ross are both geeks, super sweet, easy to get along with, and a lot of fun. Any couple that’s going to order a “Zelda” themed wedding cake with a Star Trek quote is awesome.

A couple of weeks before the wedding, Brittany tweeted:

“Also stressed to caterer how much we want to see our cake before it is cut after horror story from a coworker–they NEVER got to see theirs.” Followed immediately by “I think I would die if I didn’t get enough time with @Celebr8nGenr8n’s sugar art. Prob. gonna be hard not to make out with it.”

When I tweeted that I was working on a “super geeky cake topper for (her) wedding”, she replied:

“OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG YUSSSSSSS”, with a retweet.

When I tweeted to her – just 2 days before the wedding – that I was SUPER tempted to misspell something on the cake, as it was my LAST one, and would be fun to get a “cake wreck” out of it, she not only did NOT freak out at me, she replied:

“Ross and I now wish we’d picked a @cakewrecks theme. Baby/carrot topper, poo tier, tier with words “pink heart here.”

I mean really, how can you not love this girl? Brides… you know that saying “A happy wife = a happy life”? You should apply it to your wedding vendors. Much better to go down in someone’s memory as a favorite, with warm fuzzies… than as a ‘zilla. Just saying.

The cake was awesome. Not only was it geeky, it was INVOLVED enough to not be boring.

I had to make a sword cake topper. The cake was hexagonal (I don’t get to make many of those!), piped with intricate symbols, and then gradient airbrushed. I love airbrushing entire cakes, and to do a gradient is a bonus. Not enough people have that much fun with color on their wedding cakes.

Then, I airbrushed it a SECOND time with metallic shimmer, and hand painted all of the piping with more metallic shimmer food paint.

Plus, I mean… I got to quote Spock on it. I LOVE Spock. I love Leonard Nimoy. How awesome is it that I got to incorporate that on my last cake? If I’d had to pipe buttercream roses for my last one… ugh.

Even in piping the decorations on, though.. I was still tempted to get a cake wreck out of it. Had their been room to attribute the quote, I had an awesome idea – I could just attribute the quote “ – Kirk”. Enough of a wreck that the couple – and probably the vast majority of their friends – would get it, but not enough so that I’d have to bring myself to spell something wrong (which would probably make my brain bleed). I’m not sure if it would be “wrecky” enough for Jen at Cake Wrecks … but I bet she’d get a laugh out of it!

The bride did, when I told her of the idea while I delivered the cake!

I got to be present for the brides’ first viewing of the cake. She was ADORABLE, and I was so honored to have that moment, for my last time. Also? Bonus points for strewing boxes of Nerds candy all over the cake table. My husband and I gave out Nerds at our own wedding!

The cake featured alternating layers of chocolate and vanilla cake, brushed with Jameson whiskey syrup, and filled with Bailey’s Irish cream Swiss meringue buttercream. Yum!

As I walked out of the venue, I cried. I was FREE. No more wedding industry. No more fondant making. No more slaving for HOURS in a hot commercial kitchen. To paraphrase Bil Pullman:

I’m going to live on! I’m going to survive! Today I celebrate my Independence Day!

Brittany tweeted this morning:

“Congrats on the end of an era! Our cake = incredible inside & out. You made our big day so 1337; we count you as a friend!” and “now for the less sappy tweet: YOU’RE FREE! Go forth and destroy some cake in celebration! Might I recommend torturing one?”*

<3.

Anyway.

When I tweeted and facebooked the big announcement after the delivery had been made, it became apparent that there are some common questions that I should answer. So, here we go. (click “2″ below the social media bar to get to page 2!)

This trio of awesome Star Wars cakes courtesy of Jen at Sweet Element Cakes, who is also on Twitter at @SweetElement

Interesting note: The molecule Jen uses in her logo is Theobromine, which she chose due to the amount of chocolate she uses! She considers herself a “moderate” geek (Yeah, right…”moderate” – with a logo like that!), but is surrounded by geeks, and married one!

AT-AT Groom’s Cake

Darth Vader & Obi-Wan Kenobi Fight Scene Groom’s Cake

Surprise Guinness & Lego Stormtroopers & Darth Vader Groom’s Cake

I have a friend, Todd, who is well known locally as “The Predator”. No, not for anything gross, but for his costuming prowess. He routinely dresses up as The Predator for Conventions and special events, and looks great!

In fact, I was gonna bring him as my date to an event, in costume. Received an event invite from a local business person who’d badmouthed me and my business, and it got back to me. Yes, the one who said I was throwing it all “down the toilet” by cavorting with Klingons. Whatever. She’d made the mistake of referring to “creative fashion appreciated” on the invite for her chi-chi “NYC style” event, so I figured “The Predator” woulda been fun. In the end, A.) I figured she was probably baiting me, and B.) I’m not fond of spending much time with wannabes and pretentious fake people, so I didn’t go. I can get by on the mental images of what coulda been, though!

Yes, it could have been delicious, but I digress. Todd hosted a room party at a local horror movie convention this weekend, so we planned to do a small cake for the event. I think I’ll let the photos do the talking for me

Seriously, how badass is that costume?

We had a great time hanging out, chatting, and trying to convince Todd to take up pole dancing in that getup. Seriously, it would be epic! His guests loved the cake, and it was fun to see all the double-takes that happened when “the cake” was mentioned. One person walked right by it, looked at it, kept looking around and asked us where the cake was! Awesome.

One final pic, as it’s something we get asked about a lot:

This is what the interior of our cakes look like – all edible! Due to the popularity of cake shows on TV, a lot of people are under the assumption that carved/crazy cakes are all done in stryrofoam and other inedible materials. Not so! we are proud to have our cakes be made from real, delicious ingredients!

Aside from the main body of the cake, the dreadlocks were made from fondant covered Twizzlers, and there was a small amount of Rice Krispie treat supporting the back of the dreadlocks from underneath. All tasty!

This cake was made for one of my geeky tweeps. Her husband and her have had a running joke about a “Ganache Ganesh” for years. (Ganache being the thick chocolate filling that truffles are made from). She jumped at the chance to make their in-joke a reality, and planned to present him with a birthday cake of epic proportions. I am pleased to present “The Ganache Ganesh”!

This cake is entirely edible, aside from a couple dowels/wires in the extremities. The base and most of Ganesh’s body is made from our B-52 flavor cake:

“Not only delicious, this cake is a visual delight when sliced! Alternating layers of blood orange and mocha cake are filled with alternating layers of Irish Cream Mousse and Blood Orange chocolate truffle ganache!”

Awesome.

The rest of the cake is sculpted from Rice Krispies.

Watching the comments come in on Twitter and facebook has been great! A few of my favs:

“Wow, I had to convince my husband that was a cake.”

“That is possibly the coolest cake EVAR, and then the name makes it even better. More pics please!”

” “Look at your man. Now look at me. Is your man covered in fondant?” need an occasion to get @Celebr8nGenr8n to make that one. “

” That is amazing! The secret ingredient is obviously insane amounts of awesome. Well done.”

” I love your cakes. Love and hate..cuz they’re gorgeous…but then it makes me crave your delicious cake.”

Thank you kindly, everyone! It was a lot of work, but the pics and reactions make it SO worth it!

As you may know, I’ve been on a writing sabbatical for the past while. It’s been interesting to spend SO much time *out* of my commercial kitchen – either in my home office, banging out my upcoming cookbook… or in my own, home kitchen, working on recipes for the book.

The time hasn’t been completely cake-less.. the Hannibal cake broke up the writing mojo for a bit… and then a friend celebrated a birthday. Such a crazy, unique individual, couldn’t resist crafting something that suited her. I’ll post more write up later, but a bit of background: Melissa – AKA “Queen of the Lizard People” – is an avid photographer. Recently, she’s taken on a few long term projects, photographing fortune cookie papers, and conversation hearts (separately!)

The cake was entirely edible – The camera & lizard bodies were carved from fresh lemon cake (which was brushed with a fresh lemon syrup, and filled with our tangy fresh lemon swiss meringue buttercream! – she wanted “in-your-face” lemon flavor!), with the camera lens and lizard head sculpted from Rice Krispie Treat. The black fondant was chocolate, the orange fondant was lemon flavored. Yum! Additionally, the “conversation hearts” were made from fondant, and the crown / fortunes were made from gum paste.

Check out the photos!

As always, the cake is entirely edible – the only non-cake portion is the “lens”, which was fashioned out of Rice Krispie Treat!

Well,  when the cake was created by an evil cake overlord, they can get it preserved. For real.

“Foopmallet” gained immortality 1 month after he was created, and the whole process is documented here.

We love challenges!