1957 Chevy Cake

Mona wanted to get a very special birthday cake for Ken this year. I'll be honest, when she first emailed I was quite a bit scared... she wanted me to make a 1957 Chevy for the cake because it's Ken's dream car. Now, I have to apologize to Ken because he got a cake, and not a car for his birthday (sorry man!) BUT it gave me the opportunity to take on a huge challenge. Although I was hesitant, Mona was so awesome to put her trust in me and encouraged me the whole way through (this sounds so dramatic, I realize that). It took many, MANY hours to complete this cake from the multiple sketches to measuring the specs to the sculpting and "fondanting," which I know isn't a word. In the end, Mona and Ken loved the cake so that's all that matters.

The cake was a deep purple-ish/blue-ish color with silver and white trim but the pictures came out a little darker/bluer (is bluer a word?) than the cake really was. It was a Chocolate Dipped Cherry Cake (chocolate with cherries baked into the cake layered with chocolate buttercream) and covered in all homemade marshmallow fondant. For those of you just looking for the pictures (like my dad), stop reading now but if you're interested in making a similar creation, here are my reflections on the process...
First, I have to say that I sketched this cake out several times. It's very different to have pictures of a cake rather than detailed sketches with measurements and dimensions. Generally, it's very tricky to take a 2-D picture and turn it into a 3-D thing so doing it in cake was definitely going to take a lot of planning. I baked rectangle shaped cakes first and let them cool. I stacked and layered them with frosting just as I would any other cake, making sure to put a little extra in the middle for the roof. I covered it all in chocolate buttercream and let it sit in the fridge for a while. This allows the cake to firm up a bit which makes it easier to carve. The whole process really took a lot of patience because it took several pairings of carving the cake and then icing the cake just to get it to look even remotely close to a car. (Don't worry, I bounce my ideas about 3-D cakes off of my man-friend, Paul, since he's WAY more of an artist than I) After we were both satisfied with the general shape of the cake, I covered it in one last coat of buttercream and then covered it in fondant.

Now, I wanted the car to shine like a paint job so I painted over the purple fondant with a deeper purple and then made the bumpers, windshields, headlights, roof, and wheels out of fondant. It's hard to see in these pictures but I cut the windows just slightly into the cake so that they had some depth. Also, the car was actually propped up so that Mona and Ken could see underneath the car and so the car looked like it was being held up by the wheels. The last thing I did was paint on edible shimmer and silver to the trim. Phew! It was such a great challenge and I was just so happy to hear how much Ken loved it :)