McQueen Cake

Not my first time to do a "Cars" cake, but I found this one a little bit of a challenge.

Here's why and how I did it.

I haven't really done a tiered cake, you know like the one that uses a tall pillar in between, like this before. When I learned I'll be making this type of cake, my mind was running through different ways to do it. How am I gonna make the pillar? Shall I use cake dummies? Then I badly need a hot wire cutter as there are really no cake dummies sold in this side of the planet. and I really hate cutting through styro sheets using a regular cutter. Shall I just ask Manong Jimmy (a carpenter neighbor) to cut for me a one-inch tubular wood? Then perhaps stick the tube right through the cake and then what? No, not the way I want to do it. Let's get back to the styro option. As hubby and I were discussing how to do our own hot wire cutter, I suddenly remembered that I have two Wilton separator plates and a set of crystal pillar. Weirdly, I only have a 10" and 8" plate and just 4 crystal pillars. I thought I've gotten a set. I suddenly jumped out of bed and was so joyous. Problem solved.

I wrapped around the four pillars some board then printed black and white checkered on paper and wrapped it around the board.Well, I tried to shortcut it at first and printed directly on the board but my dear, old, grumpy printer beat Oscar the Grouch for being so grouchy that time it just refused to digest the thick board.

This cake was made from our Moist Chocolate Cake recipe and filled and frosted with Boiled Icing. I had already made my vow that I will ice-perfect (so what when it falls short, just near perfect would do) all the boiled the icing that I'll do, that is to ice the cake really smooth (hoping that one day I will be able to make my first "fondant-look" cake).  To achieve that, I dipped the spatula in hot water then smooth it over the cake. 

 I was happy with how it turned out. 

The McQueen topper was provided by the mom of the celebrant while all other toppers and decors were made from fondant. For the checkered flags, I scribed squares into the flaglets then painted the boxes with black gel paste mixed with a little gin (alcohol). The stop sign was painted red, the white "stop" text was written using a paint brush and white gel paste. To not get the car topper dirty (I mean sweetly and deliciously dirty) with icing, I set it atop a cake board. To conceal the edge of the cake board, grasses were piped all around it.

Thank you Mommy Muff for the complement and for giving me an opportunity to be part of Pacey's first birthday celebration.