Cakes gear up for Baycon!
For the second year in a row, I had the pleasure of making cakes for the staff party/feed/collapse at the end of Baycon. I'll do a full write-up of the weekend (my first as a staff member) in a bit, but first ... cake photos!
This year's convention was titled "The Lost Sky City of Pyrocumulon", a steampunk-set city of wonder and mystery (and dragons). The very talented Kimmi Albee had drawn a picture of the city that was used as the convention's masthead. I decided to try and put it on the cake. But not as an edible photo or anything ... oh no, I was going to recreate it in buttercream! (Because I am crazy.) In addition, to go with the steampunk theme, I made four cakes shaped like gears.
Here is what Kimmi's drawing looked like:
And here is what I did with it:
The City of Frozen Buttercream Transfers!
This is without question my most complex FBT to date. I used a toothpick dipped in frosting to do many of the details (like the flags and trees). It's obviously not perfect, but I'm very pleased with it!
The glyphs in the corners say "Thanks Staff" in Pyrocuniform, the language of the city.
The gear cakes utilized my other favorite decorating technique - luster dust!
I had a devil of a time trying to frost the cakes. The frosting refused to stay put on the edges of the gears and kept sliding off, so it looked kind of messy. I don't think anyone else cared, though ... at least, I hope they didn't ...
And yes, the gears actually spun! Not automatically, sadly - but if you turned one, they all worked together! I think that was many people's favorite part. Several of even them took video, like this one:
Many thanks to 'Czarcats' on Flickr for the video!
I included a "Parts List" (with Pyrocuniform translation) so people could easily pick which flavor they wanted.
The full spread!
This year's convention was titled "The Lost Sky City of Pyrocumulon", a steampunk-set city of wonder and mystery (and dragons). The very talented Kimmi Albee had drawn a picture of the city that was used as the convention's masthead. I decided to try and put it on the cake. But not as an edible photo or anything ... oh no, I was going to recreate it in buttercream! (Because I am crazy.) In addition, to go with the steampunk theme, I made four cakes shaped like gears.
Here is what Kimmi's drawing looked like:
And here is what I did with it:
The City of Frozen Buttercream Transfers!
This is without question my most complex FBT to date. I used a toothpick dipped in frosting to do many of the details (like the flags and trees). It's obviously not perfect, but I'm very pleased with it!
The glyphs in the corners say "Thanks Staff" in Pyrocuniform, the language of the city.
The gear cakes utilized my other favorite decorating technique - luster dust!
I had a devil of a time trying to frost the cakes. The frosting refused to stay put on the edges of the gears and kept sliding off, so it looked kind of messy. I don't think anyone else cared, though ... at least, I hope they didn't ...
And yes, the gears actually spun! Not automatically, sadly - but if you turned one, they all worked together! I think that was many people's favorite part. Several of even them took video, like this one:
Many thanks to 'Czarcats' on Flickr for the video!
I included a "Parts List" (with Pyrocuniform translation) so people could easily pick which flavor they wanted.
The full spread!