Porsche Cake

Just the logo for today's cake. Maybe I'll make a replica of Dad's car next year? We'll see!

20 years ago, for his very first Father's Day, as a gift to himself, my dad bought a Porsche. I'm not really sure why, or what that has to do with being a new dad, but he really wanted one, so he got it, and it's still sitting in our garage right this very second.

Bam! Do you see how smooth that buttercream is?

But let's get back to the exciting stuff: the cake. For Father's Day '11, I went with a chocolate cake. Surprised? Yeah, me too. I thought for sure that Dad would want a plain yellow cake, or maybe lemon, but he went for something totally different and asked for chocolate. Go figure.

So chocolate he got: chocolate cake, chocolate buttercream, chocolate chips, chocolate syrup, chocolate fondant.

The baking and the buttercream-ing of the cake was the easy part. It was when the fodant came in that I started having trouble. First of all, I used Fondarific, which is a terrific, tasty, and rather expensive fondant that we use (and sell) at work. The chocolate flavor tastes a little like tootsie rolls, so that's awesome. The problem, though, is that I'm used to using a dough sheeter to roll out the fondant, and today I had to do it by hand, with a wooden rolling pin, and a lot of elbow grease.

Smooth fondant! (mostly)

Anyway, after some sweat and tears (no literal tears, but I did feel like crying at one point when I still couldn't get the fondant thin enough and I was worried I'd have to start all over again), I got the cake covered. Is it as smooth and professional as you see on the TV shows? No. But was my Dad happy? You bet. It's all about pleasing the customer, right?

The logo was a lot of fun to make (though not necessarily easy). I printed the logo from Google Images, used it to trace onto the fondant, and did the same for the center part and the red and black stripes. I don't have an X-acto knife but I realized today that it's going to be my next decorating investment. The lovely gold sheen was achieved with lemon extract and "old gold" luster dust (usually I use vodka, but we didn't have any of that and it's Sunday, plus I doubt my parents were going to buy me vodka anyway, even if it was only to paint a cake). I free-handed the horse and the writing, which turned out quite spiffy, if I do say so myself. (I can never draw horses, but it turns out I can paint a tiny silhouette of one!)

Oh, and Adam helped me put the ribbon around the cake. If you look at the back side of it, you can see his little thumb prints. Which is why it's on the back.

It's not exactly the neatest cake in the world, but I'm hoping that everyone else doesn't notice all my flaws, so I'll try not to point them all out. I'll keep my perfectionist comments to myself!

Happy Father's Day!