Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Step-by-Step Cake Carving Tutorial

I've been asked by many people to post a step-by-step tutorial on how I carve a cake. So, today's post will be step-by-step pictures on a very interesting cake order.

The order requested was for "One Male Brown Butt". It seems that this was a joke gift for an office going away party.... I really don't mean to offend, this is for fun - so please don't scroll down further if you don't want to read anymore.

Step 1: The cake was Chocolate Velvet Cake with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttecream. Depending on the type of cake, I usually put the wrapped cake in the freezer prior to carving so that it is as solid as possible to carve.

Next, you need to get a clear picture in your head of the cake, if the images have not been provided by the client. I dared to google "Male Bum".... I didn't open any of the images, but the thumbnails were quite sufficient :-)Step 2: Make sure you have a very good cake cutting knife. I have a larger one and a smaller one to carve the finer details.

I started with a major part of the design, the crack, and started to cut. Then I just began carving - you have to just go for it. You can't stare or think too long. Carve small pieces and stand back regularly to look at the cake from different angles - there is no "undo".
For my cakes, I try to add in all the fine details in the carving, instead of leaving it to buttercream or fondant. Here are the dimples in the butt.Step 3: Cover the carved cake in Buttercream. I usually put this in the fridge until the buttcream cream hardens a little bit. Then I take it out from the fridge and smooth out the buttercream as much as possible. For this design, I had to smooth out using my hands - picture that! :-)Step 4: I dyed my fondant to the proper shade of brown - make sure you ask specifics from your client to ensure you meet their expectations. They will usually provide a photo or color palette. I rolled out the fondant and covered the cake. Smooth your hands over the curves of the cake (now that was funny...) and cut off the excess fondant.
Step 5: Prepare additional details for your cake. For this cake, I created something that looked like the top of jeans with a belt out of sugarpaste.And Voila! The final cake - One Male Brown Butt. Hope you enjoyed this lighthearted tutorial on how to carve a cake.

15 comments:

A Bowl Of Mush said...

Love this!

Brandy L said...

Thanks for the Tutorial! Love the butt cake :D

Baker's Cakes said...

Lol! Hahaha! Great tutorial :)

Rafael Logrono said...

How cool! Well, the cake... not the bum... Okay I admit it, it was awesome; every single part of it! I love the instructional. Keep 'em coming!

-Rafael :)

Jennywenny said...

Awesome! Thanks for sharing, very funny. I hope I never need to make one but its good to know where to come if I do ;)

Ann said...

ha ha ha - hilarious! And some good cake tips too!

yvonne said...

I don't know how you did it - but you made a butt cake look quite nice.

Cathie said...

that's what I thought aswell! you made a butt cake look appetizing.
great step by step, thanks for sharing!!

Cake Fixation said...

Hilarious!!!

Coco Cake Land said...

WOW. i like how you chose the BUTT CAKE for your tutorial!! love it!!

Anonymous said...

You are too funny.... I love this tutorial... something I will definately not soon forget. I want to make a BUTT cake too :)

Anonymous said...

how big of a cake did you start with?

SweetThingsTO said...

Anonymous - It's been so long... I think it was a 9x13 sheet cake that I cut in half.

Rae said...

Did you put cornstarch on your fingers when you smoothed out the buttercream?

SweetThingsTO said...

Rae - No, I didn't use cornstarch. Nothing.