Nikon D5000 Cake

It has been a little over a year since I made what I thought at the time was my first "show stopping" cake per my sister's request.  The cake requests are definitely getting more creative and complex.  However, I can't complain as I am definitely learning a lot along the way.

My cousin, a photography hobbyist, celebrated his birthday last week and as a gift to him, I made him a cake replica of his camera per his request.  Having a lot of images to go by helps a lot.  After looking at several images of the camera online, I realized it was similar to my own Nikon D60. So, I actually used that as a model and then piped on his camera model at the end.

This was my first time carving without a template; so scary! I started with a 2 layer 8-inch square red velvet cake with vanilla buttercream frosting which I cut in half and then proceeded to carve. After sending a quick picture of it to my boyfriend, he commented that it was too small.  So, I added another layer to the top and to the side.  I also changed the jutting top piece into a trapezoid from a square the second time around.





I used store bought fondant to cover the cake and it was a nightmare to work with that day.  I couldn't get it as pliable as I wanted/needed and my first attempt ended with way too wrinkles.  So, I ripped it all off and started over.  That resulted in losing all my sharp edges but nothing cake spackle couldn't fix.

I realize I don't take any pictures of the lens in the making!  It was made of store bought rice krispies treats I smashed together and covered in two layers of fondant to avoid the lumps and bumps.  Pearl luster dust mixed with vodka gave the perfect illusion of a glare for the lens.



 



 

My two personal favorite details on the cake was sneaking my dog Patches onto the back screen and the personalized camera strap.  I love the trim I was able to put onto the strap with my Wilton cutter/embosser wheel.  I learned that I need to work on my piping skills; it took me five attempts to just pipe the words Nikon and D5000 onto the cake correctly!

R2D2 Cake

Here it is!  My first 3D cake.  It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be.  Having a time line helped a lot!  Especially when I was trying to squeeze in a batch of sugar cookies in the same week.  Much thanks to my brother who helped out with cutting all the details by free hand.

The body was made of yellow cake and chocolate buttercream frosting and then crumb coated in vanilla buttercream frosting (adapted from Cake Central).  The head and legs were made of rice krispies treats and chocolate ganache.  I absolutely love working with ganache now.  It held up 10x better than the butter cream.  The body gave me a lot of trouble from air pockets to sagging and even cracking/splitting open the next day.

Instead of covering the body in sections or horizontally, I just rolled out a huge piece of marshmallow fondant and covered it as I would with any other cakes.  Also, there was no way I was going to try and make black fondant.  I had a 50% off coupon for Michaels and used it on a 2lb tub of Duff (Ace of Cakes) buttercream fondant.  I heard many bad things about Wilton brand fondant but this one was yummy for store bought.  Only worth buying with a coupon though.  Making your own fondant is much cheaper.

I figured out what I was doing wrong with my luster dust.  I was suppose to mix it a little bit at a time with vodka to make a paint appose to wetting the surface and painting it on dry.  So nice and shiny!  The fondant underneath was actually a dark purple.  You can't even tell!

When I tasted the cake scraps earlier in the week, it was so good!  I saran wrapped and froze the cakes overnight before the torte/fill/crumb coat step. And then, I put it back in the fridge after the crumb coat.  Somewhere, something went wrong.  The cake was crumbly and dry like cornbread! I got another cake to make this week.  Going to eliminate the fridge after the crumb coat step and see what happens.