Chess Tournament Cake

As promised, I am updating the blog with the chess cake! I had the privilege of making a cake for an awesome school chess team in Philadelphia. A friend asked me to make a cake for the team that her boyfriend, another friend of mine, is the coach of. The team was doing really well this year and was going to be in a tournament that was coming up. She wanted to do something really special for the team and asked me to make a chess board for them. After brainstorming some ideas with my fiance, we came up with the idea to make a chess board with the final move; checkmate!

I started the cake by making a 1 foot by t foot vanilla cake that I covered in some homemade chocolate buttercream. This was one of the first times I used this chocolate buttercream recipe. I was a little disappointed because no matter what I tried it would not smooth out on top of the cake, but it ended up looking pretty nice ant a little like a wooden board. For the next hour or so I cut one inch squares of white and black fondant which I laid on top of the cake. My fiance and I played a game of chess together so that we could finish the end of the cake. When we saw how our game of chess ended we drew a picture of where all of the pieces were. I used that drawing to make a bunch of white and black pieces out of fondant. I placed each of the pieces on the cake and held them in with toothpicks.

The cake came out pretty nicely. Let me know what you think! :)

Natural Ice Beer Can Cake

Let me start by saying, I did not know how challenging this cake would be when I agreed to do it, but I am glad I did! One of my coworkers in my department wanted to order a fun cake for her brothers 21st birthday. She wanted a cake in the shape of a beer can, and what better beer choice than Natural Ice--the go to cheap beer that all college aged students drink. I agreed and started my planning.

For this cake I made a layer of vanilla and a layer of chocolate cake with some orange juice in the mix (if you have not noticed my go to flavor really is orange). I cut the cakes so that they were flat and easy to layer. Between the layers I added some blue buttercream to hold it together. Next I cut around the top and edges to make the shape of a can laying down. I covered the whole cake in homemade butter cream and used my Air Brush machine to cover it in a silver metallic color (edible of course!). I used a few different pictures of the Natural Ice Beer brand to come to a decision on how to tackle the design; well, that and some help and verification from my fiancee because I could not make a decision. I cut out some pieces of fondant and details and layered them on the cake. To finish the cake I cut out the words "Natural Ice" as it is on the can/beer box and placed a sort of stencil on top of the cake so that I could write the words in silver air brushed paint. I used some black fondant to make the top of the can a little more detailed.

It was definitely a challenge but it turned out to be a very fun cake to make. Her brother and family loved it :). Let me know what you think!

--Sarah :)