Need some cake help brain power from the swap collective…

[mariadnoca]

My sil requested today I make a replica of this cake for my niece’s baby shower. It looks pretty straightforward: ombre blue, with side detail, I think using the small offset spatula. The request is for it to be plain, nothing on top. No cake topper.

However, she is requesting a six layer, 6-inch cake. So…it’s tall. And I have to drive 2 hours to get there. And I’m using Swiss meringue icing. I also drive a sporty car with a feel the road, aka all the bumps, suspension.

I’m suddenly having memories of the time I made the Martha Stewart pumpkin shaped Jack lantern cake and drove it the 2 hrs to her house for Halloween and it did not survive the drive. Granted, the cake mold required two sides to be skewered together that came apart, but when it did, the icing slid off too.

So… what do you think is a good plan for this? Put a skewer down the center? (I’m not sure this would be enough to survive the drive.) Freeze the cake before I transport it? (I’m getting my first freezer, an upright, delivered next week!) Find something like maybe a block of foam? to sit it on so it doesn’t vibrate so much on the drive? Try to convince her to let me do my standard 8” three layer?

Thoughts?

 

[Marg CDN]

don't know a thing about holding layers together in cakes, but it seems to me that only one skewer would not be effective. It would just be a pole for the layers to slide around and have fun. I think you would need at least 2 to stop movement.

There must be a flattering reason that you get so many requests for such elaborate creations.

Good luck.

 

[mariadnoca]

Good news! I talked her out of the tall cake. I was just at the cake supply store and talked to both the owner who had had a wedding cake/teaching business for years, and another customer who is a professional baker. Both said it would be tricky to try to get it there in one piece. I’m absolutely thrilled. I don’t have to go through the whole Dowling situation, which the more I thought about, the more I was dreading. Not actually assembling the cake, but having the cake, even with dowels surviving transport In a sports car.

Dodged a bullet!

 

[marilynfl]

I would have suggested getting there a few hours early and bringing the cake partially finished in sections: 3 sets of 2 layers each...each set frozen and covered in coating icing. Bring your ombre icing, a turntable, cake board, spatulas and smoother. Those white bows can be made with white chocolate putty before hand and set on top when finished.

But now....

Also, 6 layer cakes that I've seen are usually 6" x 3" cake pan layers that have been split.

Also also, Boba straws work well for stability. Since they are hollow, they slide through the cake layers, making the straw solid.

 

[mariadnoca]

I would have suggested getting there a few hours early and bringing the cake partially finished in sections: 3 sets of 2 layers each...each set frozen and covered in coating icing. Bring your ombre icing, a turntable, cake board, spatulas and smoother. Those white bows can be made with white chocolate putty before hand and set on top when finished.

But now....

Also, 6 layer cakes that I've seen are usually 6" x 3" cake pan layers that have been split.

Also also, Boba straws work well for stability. Since they are hollow, they slide through the cake layers, making the straw solid.

Oh I thought that was just piped icing, but you’re right, I think it’s chocolate ribbons! I was told to put nothing on the top. Which seems weird given there is not going to be a topper.

Yes, I was starting to think the only way to do it was to ice the cake once I got there, which was bringing my stress level up. I don’t have the stamina I used to have, which is why I bought a freezer.

Right now, I’m trying to look online to figure out how to make that baby blue. I went to the supply store to get Wedgwood blue because I can’t get it shipped in time, and they said they haven’t been able to get that color for a long time. I do have a Americolor: royal blue, sky blue, and navy blue + plus black to start with.

I almost offered to make a striped cake to match their paper goods, but stopped myself once I remembered that would mean having to find my ruler and possibly a protractor.

 

[mariadnoca]

Also I found this cake box, which seems to be a new lower cost for us hobby bakers, but a great idea. I would’ve bought one if it wasn’t sold out.

The CakeSafe-LITE

Affordable & Reliable Cake Delivery for Bakers of All Levels! Introducing CakeSafe-LITE—a game-changing solution from the inventors of the original patented CakeSafe Box! Designed to offer stress-free cake transportation at a fraction of the price, CakeSafe-LITE is a corrugated cardboard cake...

cakesafe.com