I was asked to make a cake for a teen's surprise birthday party. When asked what type of cake, the party-thrower replied, "Something like a steampunk airship, or buddha, or star trek, or whatever you think is cool."
I decided to go with the airship. After looking at drawings online, I had an idea in my head of how I would make this cake:
Using my football pan, I baked two cakes.
Using my mini-loaf pan, I baked two more cakes.
My idea was that I would join the two football-shaped cakes, and attach a mini-loaf cake beneath it, as the gondola.
Bamboo skewers would hold the cake together.
I would cover the cake in the kind of icing that forms a shell, in a white patchwork pattern, brush on a brown glaze, and wipe it off to 'antique' it.
With bamboo skewers and phyllo dough, I constructed wings for my airship. These were quite delicate. They dried well overnight.
Bamboo skewers would also hold the portholes onto the gondola, and I made fondant 'brass' rings as the porthole frames.
I mixed up the icing and it began thickening before I could pour it over the gondola. It came out gloppy, instead of smooth and easy.
The more I worked with it, the worse it got. I eventually gave up and reached for the spare gondola.
I covered it with icing that was white, and then sprayed it brown, once it set up. Also, instead of attaching portals that stood out, I just attached the rings directly to the gondola sides.
While that was setting up, I spread icing on the flat sides of the football cakes, pressed them together, and inserted several skewers. I immediately got to work applying the icing in a patchwork pattern on the top cake. After an hour, I tested the icing. The surface was set, but still soft underneath. After another hour, I turned the football cakes over onto waxed paper, and began covering the second side. A couple hours after that was done, I lifted the iced cake off the waxed paper. All the icing I had painstakingly applied to the cake stuck to the waxed paper! Great chunks of cake were unwilling to leave the icing behind, so they too, stayed on the waxed paper.
I put the cake in the freezer for a few minutes, to really harden the rest of the icing, and then flipped it over and applied more icing. I fashioned a wooden stand that the cake could rest on while the icing finished setting up on both sides. I carefully lifted the cake onto the stand and stepped back.
Right before my eyes, the entire cake split in two, and fell off the stand, and onto the counter!
It was horrible!
It was like my own personal Hindenburg Disaster.
There I stood in my kitchen, the broken airship in my hands, icing dripping onto the counter and the floor. Trying not to cry, I placed the two halves back together and set them on the stand. Taking my inspiration from Richard Scarry, I quickly grabbed a ball of white fondant and tinted it with "violet" and "copper". Then I kneaded for a good fifteen minutes, to get the murky color uniform throughout the fondant.
At last, I was able to make 'snakes', and roll them out with a rolling pin to make straps, that, with any luck would hold the two halves together.
In the meantime, icing dripped down the stand, and all over the counter from the broken cake.
I wrapped the fondant strips around the cake, but it would take hours to set up. The wooden stand had already gouged the cake on one side. It seemed hopeless.
Ron suggested laying the entire cake on a large platter, and finishing it from there. No, it wouldn't ever stand up, but it just might be salvageable.
So that's what I did. The real propeller that was supposed to spin, will not be able to, and the wings will be awkward to attach, but it was the best I could do without starting over.
pictured here, with rivets not yet attached
wings will be attached on location
with wings
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