A friend asked me to make a cake for her husband’s 60th birthday.  After I agreed to make the cake she said, “Oh, no flowers… he likes Nascar”.  I said, “Uh, I didn’t make those cakes”, but she said she’d find something for me to use for the decoration.  A couple of weeks later she gave me a huge felt pennant with a race car on it…. I had no idea what I was going to do with the pennant, but this is what I came up with.  The cake was Rose’s chocolate Fudge cake with Raspberry Ganach filling and Dark Ganach on the outside.  I was hoping the fresh raspberries would match a bit better with the red on the race car, but they were a bit darker than usual - oh well.  The cake was HUGE - 20x6x4 (I had to remove the inside door shelf from my refrigerator in order to get the cake in there).

awesome job!  I know he’ll be pleased.  It looks delicious.

Dearly Patrincia, the cake looks big!  and DELICIOUS.  What a treat to make raspberry ganache and ganache in general for a cake.  May I ask how much you got paid?

I know what you mean about “not” doing those kinds of cakes.  And by the way, I would never put something like that on top of any of my cakes!  You are kind to have done so.  Indeed your frosting looks very professional, even, and smooth, and the piping and raspberries, too.

I get so uncomfortable even to place candles on my cakes.  What strange baker I am!

Thanks Hector - I thought the car was tacky to say the least and believe me… it came off the cake as quickly as possible.  I backed it with foam core - I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to cut into an exact shape, and I had to sand the edges because they were so sharp.  I covered the foam core with cake board foil and glued the car onto that.  I bet I put as much work into that car as I put into making the raspberry ganache.

Great job Patricia. The car does look tacky. It would have killed me to place it on the cake. Your cake looks gorgeous.

Hector, you are not so strange afterall, I cringe everytime I see candles being placed on a cake that I made. I have got used to it now, with two kids around candles are a MUST on every cake.

foam core, too much work to cut!  and looks pretty professional though.  But I bet these cake-top people wouldn’t even notice if you used plain cardboard or maybe just chopsticks!

The foamcore was a bit difficult at first, but after I found a really sharp utility knife, it wasn’t so bad.  At first I colored the edges of the foamcore black with a marker, but I didn’t like the way it looked… then I pained with non-toxic craft paint, but that looked even worse.  Then I covered with the foil and that worked out well.  I made an easel back so the car just stood in place like a picture frame - it was very light weight and didn’t disturb the surface of the cake at all.

You rose to the occasion!

Bill

great job ....
..I love to make my friends cake,especially when they visit…..I make so many* of Roses cakes….so yummy…...but its personalizing,thats fun and very challenging…((You)) are so kind to take the nascar car and actually place it on the delicious treasure…I’m sure he appreciated it and LOVED the treasured cake you made from scratch…..
Yummmmm,
Kudos,
Andi

I was in Staples today and found a foam knife, exactly for cutting foam core!  I’d been using an exacto knife to do that, and it was pretty awful.  I didn’t buy this tool (it was $12) I’ll wait until I need to.  I’ve had to start using foamcore for cake bases (I don’t have anyone who can cut plywood), gluing it to the cake drums sometimes or using it for the bases of dummy cakes that go on display (a cake drum costs an average of $6, the foam core is much less and for a dummy cake, why not?)

Sometimes you have to use what you have and the foamcore car was a good way to do it.  Sometimes I have people who want to do a grooms cake and if their budget doesn’t run to a sculpted cake, I tell them to buy a decent looking toy motorcycle, boat or car, and we make the top of the cake look like a roadway or a dirt track or lake and put the toy in place.  I also bought, early in my career, chocolate molds to use. I don’t use them a lot now, but in the beginning, they were a godsend.  Especially the boat!