39: Haters to the Left. (August 29th, 2011)

Welcome to your fantasy. Please find a sexy crustacean, to your left. This is what you get. This is what you get when you put me, Adam Ellis, and a virtually unlimited supply of fondant in a room together.

Adam (you know his blog probably – Books of Adam) lives in Portland, and I live in New York, so when he visits the east coast you’d better believe that we have cake plans all but solidified. You may remember our last cake, the Nintendo Game Boy. A commercial success. A stunning tribute. Some people even said “oh, that’s neat.” Naturally, as Adam’s visit approached, I began to feel the pressure, the fear of the sophomore slump. I didn’t want to disappoint my tens of – nay, dozens of devoted readers. So we started throwing ideas around weeks ago. Of course, Adam was still pushing for the fetus cake, and most other suggestions that came out of him were on that level. Time was running out. Then, while on vacation in Nantucket, inspiration struck Adam. He notified me immediately.

And just like that, we had a theme. The original plan was actually to make a regular ol’ lobster getting stuck in one of those 6-ring plastic soda can holders. Because, why not. I wasn’t completely sold on the idea, and when I voiced these concerns – that maybe it’s a little morbid, a little preachy – Adam responded, well, we’ll put a bow on it. FTFY.

Look at those nails. Exquisite. Anyway – Adam came down to lower Manhattan and we got to caking. We ran into our first problem about 8 seconds in. I didn’t have any red dye left, for the fondant. But then Adam made the observation that some lobsters are blue. The rarest. The sexiest, generally. By now you’re starting to see how our plan evolved from socially conscious to materialistic and – did I mention it yet? Sexy.

In all honesty, the cake construction can be summed up most efficiently in the following illustrations.

At least, that’s how I remember it happening. Adam definitely used his beard lasers. Don’t let him tell you that he didn’t.

But I guess for good measure I should include some actual photographs. Here’s my face:

Good, right?

We started with a character study, which was laborious and meticulously accurate:

For the claws, I used a material I am not totally familiar/comfortable with: modeling chocolate. It tasted like butt, and Adam swore the longer you handled it, the greasier it became. But it made for great sculpting material, and even though I would eat a sock before this junk, it’s “edible” and therefore fair game. My next cake will be made of 100% sock.

Halfway through we decided to do it up like Build-A-Bear and bury a “heart” in the middle of it. This gesture was mainly to prove that yes, this lobster is a slut, but sluts have feelings, and shame on you for jumping to conclusions.

Or maybe it was a completely separate organ. A dude organ. I don’t know. Go with your heart.

Adam did pretty much all of the adorable things you see on this cake. The bow, the ring, the necklace, the lips. He also made the claws and creepy little lobster legs. This guy has an unfair amount of talent, and I hate him for it. It’s selfish, really.

Everything external on this thing is made from fondant, save for the bow. That’s gum paste. But yeah – it’s all cake, fondant, gum paste, and modeling chocolate. When we were done, Adam set out to destroy the thing he had once loved.

I’ve heard once that when murdering a lobster that which you intend to boil and eat, it’s best to put it out of its misery before submerging it into impossibly hot water. Which I mean, I guess it makes sense. And here’s the second Of Mice and Men reference I’m going to make on this blog – it’s just like when George kills Lennie, guys! Impale it in the back of the head so it doesn’t have to be persecuted for crimes it didn’t knowingly commit. I guess that’s where the parallel breaks down, but whatever. Shut up.

The point is, Adam decided to cut off a little creepy lobster knuckle before doing the deed for real.

Because he is sick in the head.

Then he felt bad, so he made this:

God this thing came out great. I can’t decide what made it such a success – was it that I had Adam to collaborate with? Or was it the abundance of youtube videos we looped, most notably being slow motion clips of Paula Deen? There’s no real way of knowing. But this much is true – when we were done, we were hungry.

Surprise ending – Adam got a taco but I got a quesadilla.

38: ohhhhhehh da puddang POP (August 9th, 2011)

Thirty-Seven: OH MY GOD BABY (July 19th, 2011)

This past weekend, my brother’s fiance had a baby, and now I have a niece. Which is absolutely insane. Is my brother ready for fatherhood? Sure, yeah, I think so. Am I ready for aunthood? That depends. What does “aunthood” entail? Is this like, a full-time gig? Because I’ve got a lot on my plate right now.

What’s she going to call me? Aunt Kristin? Can a kid even pronounce that? How old does she need to be before I can start swearing around her? What if she asks me to help her with her math homework? Am I going to have to like, make shit up? What if her favorite TV show is Two and a Half Men? These are things I have to think about.

Well, the baby is born now, so these questions went from theoretical to legitimate in what seems to be an inexplicably short amount of time. But let’s rewind, and go back to the making of this cake, which happened about a month ago, when Caroline Grace was but a bump on Kateri’s abdomen.

The baby shower took place at my home in New Canaan, Connecticut. It was a lavish affair. There were balloons. There was wine. There were asparagus stalks wrapped in meat. There was rain.

I actually baked this cake. I knew that people were going to be interested in eating this cake, as opposed to just looking at it, so I did my best with a coconut cake recipe I found. I baked it in New York, then hauled it up to New Canaan to execute the decoration the day before the party.

You may remember me talking about my cousin Kelly at some point – she’s the one who got me into this cake thing. Well she lives in LA at the moment, but she was back on the East coast for the week to oversee her protege’s progress. Also, she was taking some meetings in NYC. But she was mostly there for me, and don’t let her tell you otherwise.

My point is, she has a newish baby named Tatum, and I got to know her while I decorated the cake. I’m not a big baby gusher. My uterus doesn’t weep with longing when I see babies. But Tatum was fascinating. I think that this is because I’ve never actually been that close to a baby that age before, let alone been able to like, hang out with it. In my experience, though, women do generally have baby fever (a less lethal strain of Beiber Fever), and in honor of that dumb phenomenon, here’s this:

The construction of this was pretty straightforward. I made two tiers – one 9″ and one 6″. I layered circles around the edge and tried my best to get a good gradient. I piped on some lettering, mounted the moon and star, smooshed the little chocolate balls into place, and called it a day.

The party began, people started showing up. People from my Italian side, people from my Irish side, they all mingled. Which doesn’t happen often. Oh and my kindergarten teacher, who was also my brother’s kindergarten teacher, showed up. It was awesome. Until I realized that I could say the words “Oh my god! I haven’t seen you in like, twenty years!” to someone, and not be exaggerating. That was a moment. I spent a few minutes staring at my lawn after I said that.

If you’re at all familiar with the sequence of events at a baby shower, you know that the parent(s)-to-be is/are required to open every gift in front of everyone at the party, and everyone is required to make noises when every practical, impractical, and quippy-onesie gift is revealed.

I had to write down all the gifts as they were being opened, and who gave them.

This is me, sitting in a corner with my little notepad, giving my dog a death stare as he sniffs the mountain of pulled pork I grabbed to get me through this most boring of rituals.

And here are some pictures of the gifts they got. I may have adjusted them slightly in Photoshop to enhance visibility.

Bacon!

A Barfing Pup!

Every expecting mother needs a Sad Batman.

A good source of iron.

Someone got them the Declaration of Independence, which I thought was excessive.

Gotta catch ‘em all.

That was fun.

Then it came time to cut the cake. Since my cake wasn’t enough to feed the seventy-something people there, my mom picked up a store-bought creation that just about made my eyes bleed.

As I was cutting up the cake, I hear someone in my ear asking if it’s ok if this person shoves a piece of cake into my brother’s face. I was a little distracted, so the question didn’t quite make it to the rational part of my brain, and my immediate, intuitive response was, of course, yes. So my cousin Kelsey sprang into action and just annihilated Joey with a slice of face cake.

Unfortunately, since my cakes are mostly fondant and almost no mushy frosting, the result was not as satisfying as, say, a pie to the face would be. So in essence, Kelsey punched my brother in the face, and there just happened to be a piece of cake in her hand.