Hi everybody and welcome to Sculpted Cakes week! I was very excited for this unit as I've always wanted to learn more about sculpting cakes and about creating a structure to build cakes on. This cake was the first one we worked on with partners. I'm lucky enough to like everyone in my class so I wasn't too worries about who my partner would end up being, and I wasn't disappointed. I generally prefer to work alone on cakes but we have a Sweet 16 cake as one of our final projects, and we have to do it with a partner so it was good practice for me. 

This cake used a lot of different techniques, many of which we learned about in the previous weeks of the program. Some of the components were made of cake, some of Rice Krispie treats and some of Styrofoam. We also made detail pieces from gum paste and pastillage.

The soccer ball was the only non-edible component of the cake, other than the structure. We made another ball out of cake but this one was Styrofoam. We covered it in white fondant then used hexagon and pentagon templates to create the design.

This was the board for the base of the cake. We covered a piece of particleboard in ivory fondant then airbrushed on the wood plank design. I was so excited to learn this technique and was amazed at how realistic it looked. It definitely convinced me that I need to get an airbrush!

Here are some close ups of the final cake. The bear was made from Rice Krispie treats. We made all the pieces separately (the arms, legs body and head) then covered them in fondant and attached them using tempered chocolate. We airbrushed the bear to add shading and depth. We were free to decorate the bear however we wanted so partner and I decided to go with sailor to match the boat.

The main body of the boat was made of cake and decorated with fondant. The mast and sail were made from pastillage, the life preserve from gum paste and the rope from modeling chocolate.

And here is the final cake all put together. The luggage and the red ball were the other cake components. We used pvc pipes screwed into the base to support the bear and the soccer ball with the boat on top. I love how this cake turned out. It was also fun to see how each team decorated there's differently.

Well that concludes week 11. This also happened to be our last week with Chef Scott, which was pretty depressing. Next were learning about petit fours, but the week will be short because of Thanksgiving so I bet It's going to be busy! I can't wait to tell you about all the delicious thing we're making!  Thanks for reading, until next time.

Happy Baking,

Kayla