My Thirtieth Birthday Cake. (January 2002)

Who better to make my own birthday cake than me?? My mom told me she's not getting/baking me a cake this year, and that probably nobody ever would again, now that I make cakes so much. Fortunately, I had already started working on my cake. Now I should tell you, the black leather/chain/spike/stud theme of this cake isn't really related to my birthday in any way. I've just had the idea for this cake for a long time, and this seemed as good a time as any to actually make it.

The black leather is just fondant, dyed black. (I use the Wilton, pre-made fondant that comes in a box. I made my own once, but buying it is SO much easier!) The spikes and studs are white fondant, painted silver. And the chain is gumpaste, also painted silver. I don't think you can tell in the photo, but I used a wheel to put in stitch marks all around the leather. It looks very real.

Ancil and Fenghua came over after work so they could see it in all its black leather glory before it got eaten. They loved it.

Mike & Joe came over the night of my birthday and together the 4 of us devoured over half of the cake (mostly Joe and Dan). They loved it too. I really have to say, I was *very* happy with this cake. I think it might even beat out the Obnoxious Spring Monday Cake as my personal favorite. When my dad saw it, he asked if it were a day planner. No joke. A day planner. I just told him that yes, it was a day planner. Sigh. :)

Problems: The only problem I encountered had to do with the fact that i used piping gel to attach the extra pieces of leather, the spikes, and the studs to the cake. They kept sliding down the cake. Eventually, they held ok, but next time I'm just going to use royal icing. I used piping gel because it's clear, so if a little bit gushed out the side, no big deal. I guess I could have just dyed the royal icing black.

Book Talk 20th Anniversary Cake. (January 2002)

This cake was for the 20th Anniversary of the Library book club, called Book Talk. I was honored that they chose me to make their cake. It's the largest cake I've ever done. And talk about pressure--both my former and current bosses were going to be there!

	The final cake, in its final resting place, at the library. I was SO glad to have it finally out of my hands.
	The layers, baked and wrapped in plastic until they're ready to be iced
	Making white chocolate roses. The circles on the mat will become petals. The semi-pyramid looking things are the base that will hold the petals.
	Me, putting the roses together. It took forEVER.
	Me, holding up a finished rose. Note that I cheated on this one and only put 3 outer petals instead of 5.
	The royal icing stars, drying on bamboo skewers on waxed paper. Traced over a pencil drawing of the stars.
	The stars, icing is dry, freshly painted with edible gold paint.
	The gold stars, complete. The big one is for the center of the cake. The others go around it. In the end, I only used 5 stars total, but I took the extras with me just in case.
	Some of the roses, drying on a platter.
	The bottom layer, sliced in half and filled with light-purple buttercream icing. Mmmmmmmm. Purple.
	Bottom layer, filled and crumb coated.
	a closeup of the finished cake.
	The finished cake (except for the gold stars) from the top.
	I didn't have any boxes big enough to carry this cake, so Dan built one for me! :) Thanks, Dan!

a b/w photograph from the Penn Current. Caption read: "helping celebrate are four of the founding members: Lee Pugh (standing center front) from the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library; (standing next to Pugh going left to right) Julie Vick from Career Services; Jean Farrington, wife of former Engineering School Dean Greg Farrington; and (seated, far right) Jane Bryan, formerly from the Library."