Revealed: Project Ziggurat

I hear you out there.  Yes, I know you've been checking in to see if I've published the pictures of Project Ziggurat. 

Well, your faithfulness is now rewarded.  I present to you, with no small amount of pride, Project Ziggurat (or: The Cake that Ate a Blog).

Aside from a little cardboard and a few wooden dowels, this thing is completely edible.  It took 60 cups of rice cereal...8 bags of marshmallows...5 pounds of fondant...2 chocolate cakes...an entire batch of buttercream icing...a vat of royal icing...and a great deal of supporting infrastructure. 

The top tier, as well as the bottom two tiers, are made entirely out of cereal treat.  He wanted an epic cake, but was only feeding a handful.  So, we went the fake-cake route, and only the 8" and 6" tiers are delicious chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream.
I had ordered a brick texture mat to make the fondant work easier.  But, alas, the mail was slow, so all those bricks are done by hand.

Then the piping...oh my goodness...the piping.  Let's hope I ge this right...

First we have Arabic:

Then Hebrew:

Next is Paleo-Hebrew or Proto-Canaanite:

Then Middle Egyptian (which was almost tossed for a few choice words Amy had to describe just what she thought of near eastern languages as her hand was cramping up in protest):

And finally, Akkadian or Neo-Assyrian Cuneiform:

And what does it all say? 

Josh is 33. 

Actually, the part I've shown you here probably just says "Josh is..." The text wraps around the three sides not bearing the stairs.  Needless to say, I'm happy to write in modern English, without the need to draw birds, triangles or other pictures to get my point across.  Heaven help me if we are ever forced to learn Chinese. 

But, truly, my brother Josh is celebrating 33 years, and this was his choice for his party this year.  I hope it makes the trip up to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in one piece, where it can be enjoyed by his Biblical Archaelological and Near-Eastern Linguist type friends.  Yes, he really is that smart:).

Happy Birthday, Josh!  I love you dearly, as you can tell by the herculean effort I made for your cake.  I hope you and your friends enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the challenge of making it!

The Fender Stratocaster - - of Cake

Once again, I find myself at the end of a huge project with very few words...so I'll share with you the pictures of one of the best cakes I've created to date.

Here's the guitar-lover's rock-star cake.  The Fender Stratocaster, a la Bake Lore, 100% hand crafted from the tone knobs to the pickups and tuners:

That's my model - my old strat from college, and a great instrument!

My Dad, the best guitar player I know, and I know quite a few.
I was pretty much in cake heaven when he was so happy with the final product.

So that's it!  The whole thing is made out of gumpaste, cereal treat, fondant - and of course, cake and butter cream.  There are only small bits of cardboard and floral wire holding things in place, but otherwise, you could eat the whole thing! 

Happy Birthday to one very lucky little boy!

Snake...On A Cake!

Last month was my husband's birthday.  He likes to say I robbed the cradle, being a whopping two years younger than me, and since I know he'll never stop thinking that's funny, I smile and nod affectionately.

This year, I wanted to do something special for his cake.  Not unlike the Giant Ding Dong Cake I posted last week, I took chocolate cake, layered it with ganache and covered it with another good coat of that chocolatey, fudgey goodness.  The cake itself was a set of stairs I carved, mostly a prop for the real work of art - Liquid Snake, of Metal Gear Solid fame. 

That's right.  I made a manly, cigarette smoking video game character out of rice krispie treats and gumpaste.  See for yourself:

Snake! Snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!!!!

And here's a shot of the whole shebang:

He's always ducking behind stairs or hiding in barrels so he can
shoot people in the head.  Hence the chocolate cake staircase.

I'm no fan of the video game - heck, I'm no fan of ANY video game - but my husband loves it.  It's one of his top five favorite games ever, and I love my husband.  So even if I do think video games are dumb, I am paying attention.