Threadcakes is open

And once again, I have not done anything at all before it opens. Who, me, procrastinate?

Actually, that's not entirely true. I have the gumpaste on hand, and I think I have settled on a design.

The design itself is from a penguin shirt. The penguin will be out of gumpaste and reside on the top of a three tier cake.

The three tier cake will be done topsy-turvy style (there's a first time for everything!) and will be covered in fondant in a light blue with snowflake fondant cutouts on the tiers.

In my head, it looks awesome. In reality, we shall see. (Also, it's totally an excuse to buy another cricut cake cartridge so that I have one that does snowflakes.)

Updates

So, you may have noticed the updated look and feel of the blog (sadly, no new content, but I am working on it).

The logo is the delightful work of artist extraordinaire Rachel Dukes, of Poseur Ink.

It was an interesting process -- I started with one idea, she did a fabulous sketch, I came back and said "wait, no, what I really want is , please don't kill me" and she did another fabulous sketch, we refined the colors, and here's what you see - a ninja chef octopus, which if you know me personally, you know makes perfect sense as a logo.

In other news, I am trying to get into the July 14th Denver Handmade Homemade Market to actually sell some cupcakes. If I get in, I will let everyone know what time and where to come and find me.

And, last but not least, I have a facebook page for Denver Cake Ninja now, too. So feel free to like that and get updates and weird rantings about cake :D

Otherwise, I have some cake and cupcake photos to upload, a solid idea of what the next two Cake University videos will be, I just need it not to be 90+ degrees since that's not a friend of frosting in order to shoot them, and I'm getting ready to start on Threadcakes again (Opens mid-June, closes mid-August. Gumpaste, ho!).

The 2010 Threadcake

I referenced the various things one can do with chocolate in the Cake 101 post on Friday, so here are some examples of how I've used it.  The cake is based on the Threadless design Fail, which features a cow stuck jumping over the moon.

Rice krispy cows, covered in white candy melts and painted with brown and pink.  The tails and horns are squashed tootsie rolls.

 The moon is yellow candy melts in a form I made from foil.

 Cow sitting on the moon.

 The trees were all roughly freehanded using candy melts and paintbrushes.

 The finished cake. The lights are small led lights (the twist-on kind) turned on and pushed into the top of the cake.

Could it be content?

It just might be indeed.

I have learned the folly of committing to what I am going to do for threadcakes too soon. I have decided, given that we are moving into a new house in late July, that perhaps I ought to pick something I am not going to have to move between houses -- which means no gumpaste. With the contest over in mid-August, I did not think I'd have enough time to prep the gumpaste after the move, and I really don't want to try to move a 10" bicycle wheel made out of gumpaste across town -- that seems like a chance for disaster to me.

Instead I am going to try a new-to-me technique called frozen butter cream transfer. I've done the Wilton method of butter cream transfer where you use piping gel to delineate your picture and then pipe directly onto the piping gel on the cake. This is different -- it involves building the transfer on wax paper, freezing it, and then flipping it over onto the cake.  This does mean that this year's cake will be 2D and not 3D, but it also means I might have half a shot at placing.

In other news, I am starting to prep a series of blog posts called Cake 101, which will be part of something I'm going to call Cake Ninja University.  These posts will be the foundation for the YouTube (or possibly BlipTV - my editor and cinematographer likes their terms of service and conditions on how they will use our content better) videos I will be doing next year.  And yes, there will eventually be Cake 102, 201, etc.

This is where you, my audience, (is there anyone out there?) come in. I have some ideas for where to start -- the first few posts will be about ingredients, tools, pans, and display methods -- but I also want to know what people want to hear about. So what would you like to see in a Cake 101 post or show?

Threadcakes

I did not, alas, win Threadcakes this year. I cannot say that I am terribly surprised or disappointed as the winning cakes were all pretty fantastic.

I can, however, take a few lessons away from what did win. Please note that this is my own analysis/opinion and does not necessarily reflect the reality of the Threadcakes judging.

1. Cake isn't really an important component. Yes, there should be some cake, but it's more of an afterthought than a main component. Cake is a building foundation, not an integral part and building tiers is a waste of time unless you're going to carve them into something intricate.
   
2. If you don't do fantastic gumpaste/fondant/and/or pastillage you are not going to win.
3. Corollary to 2 -- if the gumpaste/fondant/and/or pastillage is not incredibly detailed you are not going to win.
4. Cute does not win. See point 3 about incredibly detailed. Sure, it won the first year, but it hasn't even placed the last two.
5. Picking a cute but non-complex cake and executing it well will not be enough (see points 1-4).
6. I need to start planning considerably earlier next year and start on the gumpaste as soon as the contest opens if I have any hope of ever placing.

This might sound like sour grapes, but it's really not. It's more a reference for myself for next year as to how to possibly win/place/show.