So, one of our friends just had a birthday yesterday. I work with his girlfriend, and she expressed to me how special she wanted this birthday to be, because he's turning 30. She had an idea for a cake, and I ran with it. You see, the birthday man is a knife (and outdoor) enthusiast. In fact, he gave Rocket Scientist a very nice pocket knife for Christmas. So, it's very fitting that my friend wanted the cake to look like a knife.
Once I got home I started thinking about how it was going to come together and I decided that fondant was the best way to go for the deep colors I wanted. But having never used fondant before (and never liking the taste) I was a little hesitant. Then I remembered a previous convo I'd had with my friend at work about marshmallow fondant, which was easy and yummy to make. So that's what I went with.... Here's how the rest of it all came together! :)
Design: My rendition of a Kershaw pocket knife
Cake:
Best Ever Chocolate Cake by Better Homes and Gardens
Chocolate Frosting:
My Chocolate Frosting
Fondant:
Marshmallow Fondant
I grabbed Rocket Scientist's new knife and sketched it larger on paper and cut it out. Then I baked a homemade chocolate cake, let it cool completely and traced the cut out. Then I carefully cut the shape out of the cake and removed the other pieces. I transferred the knife cake to a sterile piece of cake-board to start decorating.
Then since you need to frost cakes with a least a thing layer of frosting before place fondant on top, I just whipped up some yummy chocolate frosting of my own. (See recipe
here.) I should have followed my mother's advice of always doing a crumb coat...but I didn't. :( So my layer of frosting was a little...well....crumby...It's all good though because it got covered by fondant anyway though.
I whipped up a batch of fondant and then split it in two for coloring. I did gray for the blade and red for the handle. (Then I also took some later to make black for more details...) BTW I think this tastes WAY better than regular fondant.
I rolled out a section of the gray fondant (about 1/8" thick) and draped it on top of the blade portion of the cake. Then I trimmed to fit. I repeated with the red handle portion, and added details. And instead of the brand name of the knife I put the Birthday man's name. :)
Then I finished it all off by making rolls of each color and placing then around the bottom of the cake to make it look "finished". I really like the way it turned out. (especially for my first attempt at a shaped cake and using fondant!)
I place the cake-board in the cake box that I also got from Michael's and it was ready to go to the Birthday celebration. Where it was a big hit! :)
