Comments | chicagojacks: Mouse cake

chicagojacks

Mouse cake

Oct 21, 2007 21:55

What cake to make for the party Stacey and I had this past weekend? Well, we were mostly doing it to welcome the first years to Stanford to pretend that PhD students actually have lives. And since a lot of people in the cancer bio department work with mice and models of human cancer, I made a mouse... with cancer.

( Come check it out! )

Comments 9

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chicagojacks October 22 2007, 06:11:30 UTC

It's just leftover cake mixed with frosting (and filling if you'd like) until it has a paste-like consistency. You basically replace your crumb coat with a spackle coat. But Toba Garrett recommends it under fondant. I'm not exactly sure why but what I've noticed is that it tends to get more "solid" compared to a crumb coat and you can also make it a bit thicker to smooth things out (which I wanted to do since I carved the cake and things aren't very even that way). You can even see in the pics how the spackle coat really smoothed out the carved cake. After coating you then put the cake in the fridge for at least 2 hours (I prefer overnight). The next day the spackled cake will be quite hard so you just put a thin layer of frosting and then cover with fondant. After the cake is out of the fridge for a while it softens up so you can't even tell you had the spackle coat.

But its a thicker frosting so if you used a box mix like I did it ended up being a bigger pain!

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chicagojacks October 22 2007, 16:25:16 UTC

She's a professional cake decorator. Someone on this community suggested her cake to me (The Well Decorated Cake) Although her work in INSANE (with more of a traditional/classic feel to it) she does a good job of explaining certain technqiues and such (and has some really good recipes). I really did like this spackle idea she came up with- I definitely like using it on fondant covered cakes. Any help I can get making fondant more smooth I'll take!

purpig October 22 2007, 15:16:04 UTC

haha very nice mousey cake! :)

chicagojacks October 22 2007, 16:09:39 UTC

Thanks! my first sculpted cake turned out as good as i could have hoped for.

iluvpokeystix October 23 2007, 19:03:54 UTC

that is AWESOME! I think I might make that for our pre-thanksgiving feast for our department... I might cut off the tip of the tail (for genotyping) and add a few feet (minus some toes, for numbering). haha, best idea ever, you're my hero today!

chicagojacks October 23 2007, 20:15:39 UTC

OMG cutting off the tip of the tail would be PERFECT!!! That's SUCH a great idea- wish i had thought of that. You can put the leftover tip into a 50 mL conical and place it by the mouse for genotyping :) Hahahah, I love being dorky.

btw, did you find this through the cake decorating blog or my comment on the lab_gripes page? Just wanted to let you know there is a cake decorating community and if you haven't joined it you should if you're into decorating. if you do it hope you can post the pic (in either community)

iluvpokeystix October 23 2007, 22:51:30 UTC

i DID find it through the lab-gripes comm, and i'll definitely check out the cake decorating comm too. i've never used fondant before... do i need to go to a specialty store for that?

haha, and i'm totally stealing a 50mL falcon tube for the tail piece. brilliant!!

chicagojacks October 23 2007, 23:58:02 UTC

well- to cover a cake that big i used quite a bit of fondant (maybe ~2lb), which costs around $8 per pound if you buy it at a store. If you have a Michaels (or Hobby Lobby I think) they carry a bunch of cake decorating supplies, including fondant. So the pro about purchased fondant is that its easy to work with. The cons are it tastes like crap and is expensive ( ... )

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