Help!
Joe is going to be 6 soon (it’s a cliche I know, but where did those 6 years go?)… anyway, I’ve just asked him what sort of birthday cake he would like.
Now, Joe does not really appreciate the ‘homemade’ (see Joe’s Quilt and Blackberry jam). So I was expecting him to choose a hideous (but easy for me!) shop bought number.
But, not this year. Oh no, for this year the little darling wants an F/A- 22 Raptor Fighter Jet cake…
the cockpit of which must be lime jelly with his ‘Playmobil’ pilot sitting in it and the cake cannot be ‘flat’.
In fact, it has to be completely ‘real-life’ looking.
Oh good.
If you have read my blog since the beginning (and who has?!) you may remember that the only cake I have dared post about was deemed by Joe as ‘scruffy’.
… and now this. Help!
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
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September 25th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
oh, dear! My sympathies. We have gotten away with seven birthdays with no homemade cake requests. Whew…good luck.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Wouldn’t it be less stressful to just arrange for a real one to fly over the house? Or failing that, how about a toy one flying over a map cake. A very very FLAT map.
The good news is, he’s still young enough to believe his mummy can perform miracles. And I’m sure you will.
September 26th, 2007 at 10:18 am
I know you can do it Janet, I’m not sure how you will shape the jelly, but i can’t wait to see your masterpeice. I’m sure Joe will think it is amazing!!
September 26th, 2007 at 11:32 am
This made me laugh out loud! What a request! I have to make a monster cake this week with green icing, thankfully it wasn’t a request as challenging as yours. Good luck!
September 26th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Oh yummy, I can’t wait to see it too! (and taste it!)
Mmm, just a thought – how are you going to do it’s under-carriage?
Dad
September 26th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
aah, the joys of ‘birthday cake’ requests…the last ‘fancy shaped’ birthday cake i made completely from scatch was when our #1 turned four…(she is now about to turn sixteen). i was determined to bake a number four shaped cake, after the third attempt i went into labor with our #3 and have never bothered with fancy requests since. it is always circular, covered in shop bought butter cream icing with chocolate buttons on the top…
my suggestion is to find a very nice ‘cake making’ person that could quickly become your very best friend (i wish i had a friend like that too)and then casually drop into conversation your problems with creating a ‘F/A-22 Raptor Fighter Jet Cake and if she is any kind of best friend she will immediately come to your rescue…failing with finding the new best friend, make an attempt at it, if it is a disaster make up some story about it being demolished by a cat or dog while it was waiting for the candles on the kitchen side…(if you don’t have a pet, i would suggest borrowing one from a kind neighbor)
can’t wait to see the results…
September 27th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
oh this is precious… please let us know how you get out of this one…
can’t stop laughing…
September 28th, 2007 at 12:41 am
Well… here’s what I would do.
I would draw up the jet from a bird’s eye perspective and also do a side view.
And follow the principles of doing a diorama with it – in that to make the hills you build up in flat steps – it you layer pieces to create the height and contour.
You could make a very bottom layer of just sponge – to be the base. Or it could be a swiss roll shell laid out flat. You could ice this blue to be the sky.
So, the kind of triangular shape of the body plus the side wings would be the next layer up.
Then you would do another layer that wasn’t that thick to create the contour of the two ridges down the spine of the plane. (ie 2 strips of sponge)
Then you would create a higher layer of sponge to create the cockpit – which you could hollow out, line with icing and then fill with jelly.
The high bits on the wing could be made from either sponge and you just make them go straight up – or you use those flat wafer things (but probably not the pink ones!!!)
And then you ice the cake in, er, grey. And you could place a whole lot of those silver ball things on the blue sky layer and they can be bullets (er missiles). And possibly a few marshmallows for clouds around the edge…
I reckon you can do it!!!
Good luck!!!
September 28th, 2007 at 8:16 am
I just read charlotte’s comment about 3 times and I still don’t get it!! Ooh I’m sending loads of luck- I think you’re going to need it!!
September 28th, 2007 at 10:24 am
oh no! is it unclear!!
Maybe I should draw it 🙂
you know when you go to the museum and there’s a model of like, er, a peasant village and the hills are made up of pieces of foam board – each piece is smaller than the one below it – so it makes kind of a stepped up hill…
um… ok I grew up with a bigger brother who made these all the time for his armies, he was totally into ALL the fighter planes and we used to make yachts out of lego! So this is familiar territory for me 🙂
here’s a diagram that hopefully might clarify what I’m trying to say – and if not let me know and I’ll do you a drawing!
http://ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2002/06/stuff_eng_tech_diorama_bases.htm
September 29th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Charlotte I’m sure it’s crystal clear- I’m just dense!!!