36: In Which I Learn You About Shoes (July 3rd, 2011)

Most people wear shoes. I know I do. And since life imitates art, here’s a cake that looks like a shoe. You’re welcome.

I can’t say that I’m a shoe fanatic. I’ll buy a pair of shoes to last me a season, and I will wear them exclusively for upwards of 3 years. A couple of months ago I caved and bought a $40 pair of Toms. They have not left my feet. 5 years ago I bought a pair of $30 flats, received numerous compliments on my shoe selection, and wore them until they literally fell apart. In winter, to accommodate the cold weather, I would wear socks with my flats. Because this is a reasonable solution.

I have 3 pairs of converse shoes – two low tops and one high top. They’re durable and timeless enough to stay in my closet and be worn on occasion to ensure friends and coworkers that my skin has not grafted to the fabric of my Toms. Honest to God, the reason I don’t wear them more often is because I can’t be bothered to tie laces. It takes too much of my precious time. Meanwhile, my day can’t officially start until I’ve won a game of iphone solitaire. This can take anywhere between 2 minutes and an hour to achieve.

Now that I’ve convinced you of my superior shoe knowledge, here’s a simple guide I’ve created that should talk you through any questions you might have on shoe etiquette. You may want to print this out and mount it next to your closet shoe rack.

Ok. Let’s get to cake. Again, I was pretty lazy on the photographic documentation front. I traced my shoe, and then cut the shape in cake, and worked off of that. What followed was about an hour of me using cake bits to sculpt a shape that resembled my shoe. When I covered it in ganoosh, it looked like a clog.

I covered the cake in white fondant, then put the teal color on in 3 separate panels. The two sides, and the shoe tongue. Then I cut out the lace holes, and made the laces. That was my favorite part. The laces are awesome.

Then came the final details. The black tubing, the textured front panel thing, and the silver paint on the lace holes. Which came out sloppy, but whatever. I was pleased with the final result.

We took the cake over to Brittany and John’s apartment, which worked out well because Brittany is a classic-shoe-enthusiast-of-sorts. She wrangled up all her cons and sized them up to my humble cake.

Brittany painted these:

Even her wall art has shoe standards.

I didn’t want to cut this one up. I liked it too much. And I wasn’t used to people actually wanting to eat my cakes.