THE CAKE ALCHEMIST

CURMUDGEONLY C C P DU U I

BY SCOTT BRADSHAW

“YOU’RE THE MEANING IN MY LIFE. YOUR THE INSPIRATION. ” —Chicago

Have you ever been in love?

Blame this guy. He’s to blame for all that. He’s grumpy and surly, and I can practically hear him asking “What do you want for dinner?” from here. You’ve had enough Cupid. Go to bed.

I wanted to make a tutorial for everyone on how to make this fun guy, but I completely forgot I’m horrible at teaching or showing how to do anything. I’m self-aware enough to know I can’t compete with the giants of cake tutorials. So, you want to make a gravity-defying showstopping fun cake? Great! Learn from someone else! I want to talk about the creative process and where to start. The success or failure or even the “next level-ness” of a cake design hinges on the creativity and planning you put into the project way before you even turn on the oven and start creaming the butter for the cake.

A quick image search online will give you lots of different hits. The term “drunk cupid” gave me the pages to choose a few different images from that I liked. Be mindful of copyright infringement. Copyright is an entire complicated ball of wax. My general rule is if I recognize the character or art, it’s probably copyrighted and I avoid using it. Chances are you will encounter some naughty or bawdy images, too, and if they fit the situation or mood you’re trying to make with your cake, go for it. The amazing thing about life in the 2020s is that if you make a cake and don’t post a picture of it, did it really happen? Who’s to say?

An amazing thing happens when you cake for a while: You immediately start building the cake structure in your head when you see an image you want to cake. You evaluate and choose between threaded rods

and PVC pipe, cantilevering the weight and shape and size of the base. (I’m team threaded rod.) I also evaluate my inspiration image for how much cake I can get into it. People generally get excited about eating cake from the most dramatic parts of the cake, but never forget that the base cake board can usually hold a lot of cake. Incorporate it into the design. If by this point in the process you still can’t decide on an image, use it! I use my indecision for social media views and interactions. Post images and ask for feedback. It fosters investment in the project and you get to see which one has mass appeal.

You can see my plan for structure for this cake. The black is threaded rods and the orange is ¾-inch plywood. I decided to go with ½-inch threaded rod for Cupid’s bow so it could hold the weight of the cake, which leads to my first tip. Imagine things are ten times heavier than they are, because they are. Cake adds up. Ganache adds up. Modeling chocolate and fondant add up. The key to a successful gravity-defying cake is that it, oddly enough, defies gravity … and that includes a superbumpy ride in the back seat of a car while your spouse hits EVERY BUMP THEY CAN POSSIBLY FIND WHILE THEY DRIVE YOU TO DELIVER THE CAKE.

Sketch It Out

“COME WITH ME

IN A WORLD OF PURE IMAGINATION. ”

—Willy Wonka

AND YOU’LL BE

Now that you’ve decided on your image and a rough idea of the structure, the hard part can begin. You must imagine what the 2-D image looks like in 3-D. What does it look like from above? It’s important to think about because that shape determines the cake-holding board. That shape dictates the shape of the cake. The shape I came up with is quite rude and I know you saw it. That’s why we’re friends.

All the cake weight will be coming off my Cupid’s one arm, so I drew one arm and then a roundish shape for Cupid’s belly off the arm, then another roundish shape for Cupid’s other arm and back where it met back up with his long arm (marked A in the doodle plan). In retrospect, this arm needed to be longer to make the entire thing a better match to the image, but I was worried about that one arm holding the entire weight of the cake.

Get your structure assembled, sanded, and sealed. HVAC aluminum tape is what I learned to use. If you’re using Styrofoam for any shapes that hang off the bottom of the board (knees and belly on my Cupid for example), the aluminum tape is a great way to keep the Styrofoam from contaminating any edible parts with Styrofoam cottage cheese curds. If you’re using rice cereal treats, they stick nicely to the aluminum tape too.

Manage your nuts. Inevitably, you’ll need to cut your threaded rod to fit a design. Nuts will not go onto a cut end of a threaded rod unless you rethread the rod. Build your cake structure from the bottom up, keeping the cut ends of the threaded rod down. Nuts will not screw down on a bent rod, so keep that in mind too.

STRUCTURE

Speaking of using your imagination, what does Cupid’s butt look like? You’re going to have to decide. The inspiration image doesn’t tell us. It’s up to us to decide what Cupid’s butt looks like. Luckily, I have some built-in inspiration. Now, I’m not saying that my body type resembles the inspiration image and I’m not suggesting that my butt might have influenced this cake’s butt. I’m saying props to all you people out there posting butt pics online. Taking a pic is difficult and it also can be awkward asking for help getting a photo. “No honey, it’s for a cake, I swear.”

While the image suggests it might be kind of flat, I decided he needed some junk in that trunk. He is Cupid after all. Cupid’s cake butt needs to be cakey after all. Decide if you’re going to skin Cupid’s butt or leave it bare ganache. Skinning a cake is the process of building most of the design elements with a firm ganache (either 4:1 ratio or 5:1), then covering the designs with a thin layer of modeling chocolate or fondant to finish. I chose to skin the ganache cake with a modeling chocolate finish.

As you sculpt and mold the butt, keep in mind that another layer of skin will go over the top and some details will get bulked up. Also, the smoother and less dimply you can get the ganache, the smoother the final skin will go on. Being a cake sculptor means you’ll need to get all up in places you never suspected you’d be, like Cupid’s butt and Elsa’s boobs. Oh, the Places You’ll Go! never covered this. Where Dr. Suess lets you down, I’m here to tell you.

Now that you have your image and structure and plan in place, it’s time to get to work. Bake the cakes and make the ganache and the modeling chocolate or fondant. Be sure you’re flexible enough in your plan to compensate for scale issues or for design choices. I made my Cupid a bit more imp-looking and a bit more surly-looking just for fun. I also covered the cake board base with nip bottles. This is an adult cake with an alcohol theme, so why not? Have fun with your cake and enjoy watching all your art get demolished. It’s the transient nature of beauty. ACD

REAR VIEW

SCULPTING

“WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK, WORK. ”

—Rihanna

COMPARISON

Scott Bradshaw is the owner of sevenravensbakehouse. com, an entertaining blog which strives to get people to look at food and recipes in a twisted way … as twisted as an old phone cord. Scott grew up in Texas, and has lived in Arizona, Nevada, and Missouri. He makes Plainville, MA, his home these days with his saintly husband and a bossy little Pomeranian. sevenravensbakehouse.com tiktok.com/@goosecaboose70