So Many Cakes: Cake Neuf! Boeuf! (November 23rd, 2010)

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, my god, is she capable of making a cake that isn’t in some way related to food? I made an egg cake, an apple cake, a spaghetti cake, and now a burger cake. To this criticism I say that yes, you have a point. But, truthfully, I spend about 89% of my waking hours thinking about when my next meal will be, and what it will consist of. You may as well suggest to Kanye that he should consider thinking less of himself, or that cats should be less stand-offish, or that your phone should ring less when someone calls it. That being said, I should definitely branch out. Except not next week. Next week’s cake is also food.

This week’s cake idea is courtesy of Zach. We were both on the 10:22pm from Grand Central for different reasons: I was in the city late for my Thursday night class, and Zach was getting beers and things with coworkers. One of us was drunk, and the other was not. To be honest I didn’t even realize that he was inebriated until about 10 minutes into the conversation when he announced I HAVE HAD SOME DRINKS.

At some point I confessed that I did not yet have an idea for that week’s cake. Having brought McDonalds onto the train earlier, he had burgers on the mind, I guess. He also bought a couple of what he thought were chocolate chips cookies. When he found out that they were oatmeal raisin his reaction was something like WHAT IS THIS GRANDMA SHIT. This is not related, but I found it to be hilarious.

I learned from last week. I was rational and calm. I cut the cake into the shape of two buns and there was purpose in every stroke of the blade. It came out alright.

So really the only parts of this cake that are made of actual cake are the buns. The rest is fondant (I used a lot of fondant this week), and the patty is rice krispie treat covered in fondant. I figured that rice krispie treats would be a pretty good substance for a beef patty because it does pretty much whatever you want it to do, and it also has the capacity for many textures between smooth and bumpy. I bought a box of little ones, and microwaved them. This turned out to be a horrible mistake, and then it turned into one of those happy mistakes. It was a roller coaster of emotions. First I was happy, because it turned out that microwaving rice krispie treats makes them very malleable. Then I was sad, because as soon as I tried to separate my hands from the mass of goo and rice puffs, everything came apart.

Then I was relieved, because once everything started cooling down, the puffs were more willing to stick to each other. Then I was hungry. Then I was very happy to learn that the melting/reshaping technique had created an extremely bumpy patty, and once I covered it in fondant, it seriously looked like a hunk of tasty, tasty meat.

So the buns and patty were done first, and I stacked em up to see what the world’s most boring burger would look like. In case you were wondering, it looks like a manwich.

The buns and patty were, to me, the Everest of this cake. As long as I could pull off a somewhat passable set of meat and breads, I could relax. Satisfied with the result, I had a stretch and a bend, and Donnelly thought that it would be a good photo op.

Next was the fun part, making and adding all the fixins. I still had leftover red fondant from the China cake, and it became tomatoes. Still had some green from, I don’t know, the worm cake? So that became lettuce. I had to actually dye the cheese yellow, which did not sit well with my lazy ass. The onions were easy because onions are white, and so is fondant.

Sunday was my mother’s birthday, and while I didn’t forget about it, I clearly didn’t have the foresight to make a cake that was relevant to her. Like maybe a normal cake that said something nice like “Happy Birthday, Mom.” Or a “Dancing with the Stars” cake. So she got a cheeseburger cake. Had a little fun with it before the demolition.

The perspective is way off, but just look at those faces.

Cutting through the cake was a challenge. The fondant and the rice krispie really put up a fight. But look at how awesome that cross-section is.

If you have had the patience to read through all the posts on this blog, first of all, I applaud you. Second-of-ly, you may remember the anniversary cake I made for my parents. It was a disaster. It looked bad, it tasted bad, and my mother was not shy about vocalizing this. Since then, I have not made a cake explicitly for my parents. To let the wounds heal. You may also remember, from a few paragraphs ago, that I did not plan for my parents (namely my mother) to be eating this cake. So I made some crummy box pound cake because it was easy and sturdy. Now I had to once again face my mother’s brutal honesty in the cold light of day. Well, night. We ate at night.

Luckily I had picked up some vanilla ice cream to accompany the dense pound cake, and she totally bought it.