My first adventure in cake carving...April 2009

After watching many episodes of Ace of Cakes and those other cake challenge shows, I decided to try stacking and carving some cake. This cake was for my parent's anniversary, so it needed to be something festive. Since this was my first time carving a shape out of cake, I chose a seemingly simple shape--a champagne bottle laying on it's back. Of course, at that time I did not own a bottle of champagne to use as a reference. A bottle should be easy enough to do without a reference, right? Well...

I started with a chocolate cake in a 13x9 pan. I cut it lengthwise, filled and stacked it. Mistake number one was forgetting to level the cake before stacking it. Always, always, always level the cake or else it tilts and slides. After gluing it together with frosting, I put it in the freezer for a while because I heard that it is easier to carve a frozen cake than fresh cake. Well, what they mean is a slightly frozen cake...not a frozen brick! Using a paring knife, I cut the rough shape of the bottle as a 2D design first. Then, I started rounding it. It was so much fun! Except for a few times when I was overly zealous and cut a little too much... The problem with cake carving is that once it is cut, you can't put it back. Yes, you can patch with scraps and fill with frosting to an extent, but if you cut way too much--you are in big trouble. Thankfully with a bottle shape, I was able to just make a smaller bottle when I cut too much. What ended up happening was that I did not have enough height in the center, so the bottle did not become round. Instead it was an oval shape, much like a ketchup bottle. Oops!

After carving the cake, I iced the cake with my favorite chocolate frosting and let it harden. Then, I melted white chocolate pieces in the microwave to pour on in the shape of a label. After it cooled, I piped some decorator icing to write on the label. Start to finish, this cake took one evening. It tasted great...as far as looks go--it's not my best cake. It was a great learning experience though!

As with all cake, the best part is eating it! YUM!