Amy’s birthday was this weekend and at some point I made the mistake of implying it was pretty easy to make a Millenium Falcon cake (like she had shown me from Ace of Cakes). I had forgotten about this comment – but as her birthday approached, she continued to bring it up and it became clear that she was challenging me to try it.
So I thought I would give it a shot. Amy has recently taken a cake decorating class, so we had a lot of the supplies and she was kind enough to help me identify any tools I might need (I think mostly so I couldn’t use that as an excuse if it didn’t go well). So the supplies were gathered and it was up to me to create a Millenium Falcon cake.
I looked on the internet for some images of the falcon so I could get the dimensions reasonably correct.
It actually ended up going pretty well. I twittered a series of steps that I took to pull it off:
step 1: bake 2 cakes (4 mixes) and stack them
step 2: print out template from google image search
step 3: carve the easy stuff and wonder how to carve the dome
Step 3b: attempt radical disassembly strategy
step 3c: dissassembly/carve/reassembly seems to be paying off
step 4: base layer of frosting – now to investigate fondant
(Note: I was going to cover the entire thing in fondant – I even covered the back half before tasting some of it – yuck! So I opted to go with butter creme instead and use the fondant sparingly for decoration)
step 5: gun metal butter cream
step 6: use sparse pieces of fondant
Start some detailing work (radar dish and gun in center looted from Lego Millenium Falcon)
This time we got super-crafty and went super-geeky. Josh put the Magic Squares game online which allowed people to buy squares several days in advance and put up a monitor in the bar area to replace our poster that always was on the verge of falling down. (sorry no photos you’ll just have to believe me).
Mandy and Mark sewed a felt field to go over our buffet table (AKA our covered up shuffleboard).
I made the Cardinal and Steelers logos out of felt for the end zones.
I was actually so impressed with myself I started to brainstorm ways to make money off my felt crafting skill I had no idea I possessed. Unfortunately I think it falls in the same skill category as repairing nitrate film and giving cats pills – very handy skill when you need it, but not really a big money maker.
I also made a football cake which collapsed in the center while it was baking and stuck to the pan so much the top layer ripped off. Gotta love frosting!!
Elsie’s nanny and our neighbor Mindy brought over dozens of 3-D glasses so everyone could enjoy the 3-D commercials during halftime.
After many hours spent organizing photos and home videos from the birth of Saffie to the end of 2008 I am finally ready to get going on 2009. I’m not going to go back to cover all of our wonderful holiday events but will instead start off with a semi-recent trip to the aquarium with the Sladdens and the Johnstons.
Saffie says hello to some fish.
Whatever everyone was looking at must have been fascinating!
I hope the flash didn’t upset the eyes of these guys too much
and yes, there are a few tigers at the Denver Aquarium as well!
Josh and Mandy pose for a photo while Elsie checks out a fish tank and Saffie inquires about lunch.
