Soooo about that....

I vaguely remember making some sort of statement way back in July about trying to blog more and clearly that went over well. It's now October and I finally have a free minute to enlighten the masses with my cake knowledge. My deepest apologies to those who have been sitting patiently, checking my blog for a new post each day. According the my page insight thinger-ma-bob there actually is one person checking it each day... buuuut that might just be me. Who knows!!! 

Wedding season is slowly coming to an end and I have to take a second to look back over the last few months and feel so incredibly blessed. I wouldn't have made it through this time without the support of my family, Boyfriend, and closest friends. I faced the harsh reality of being a business owner and what I have to sacrifice in order to better my company. I haven't taken a vacation since last February, I only had one weekend off over the entire summer and that was to torture myself in the Tough Mudder, and any amount of down time I have I don't have the energy to do much more than watch reruns of Breaking Bad on Netflix (don't you dare judge me!). I've lost a lot of "friends" and I say that with quotation marks because I assume that these people weren't truly my friends in the first place. I'm busy all day, every day and I invest whatever free time I have into the people who bother to send a quick text or leave me a voicemail to say that they are thinking about me. Yes, I'm well aware that telephones go both ways but for the first time in my entire life I am putting 100% of my energy into something for ME, and if that makes me a selfish person then so be it. My business is my passion and I don't think that most people would understand the time, effort, and sacrifices that one has to make in order to build a successful business. So I'm going to keep trucking along, count my losses and blessings, and look forward to the future. 

So now that I have that little ramble off my chest, and if you're still reading this then let's move onto one of the most stressful and amazing cakes that I did this summer. The snowmobile groom's cake... dun DUN DUUUUUN! The bride, Melissa, and I grew up together in the same neighborhood. She's an incredible person and when she contacted me to do a cake for her fiance, Coty, I jumped at the chance to work with her. Coty and his entire family are HUGE snowmobile fans... snowmobilers?... Uhhh I don't know the correct lingo.. but whatever you get the point... they LOVE snowmobiles. Melissa wanted me to make a replica of Coty's sled and I was sold. The bigger the challenge the better. Ok, who the hell am I kidding?! I lost a lot of sleep over this cake. Every night before I fall asleep, for some reason my brain decides it's going to go over every worst case scenario that might ever arise with a cake and cost me precious hours of beauty rest. 

When Melissa and Coty's wedding week arrived, I was on a mission. Melissa had sent me a ton of photos of Coty's sled but I was having issues visualizing how I was going to carve the cake, which led me on a field trip to Rusty Palmer, which is a huge snowmobile dealer about 45 minutes away from my humble abode. Once I got there and saw a sled similar to Coty's, everything seriously clicked in my mind. 

I had to do a trial run with styrofoam before I started hacking away at the stacked cakes. So I sat outside on my back porch and left a massacre of green foam everywhere, but at least I knew what I was going to do with the cake! 

Then it was time to bake, fill, and carve the cakes. I had to use two 9x13" cakes in order to get enough servings and create a cake that was in proportion to the real thing... because I'm OCD like that. Next up I had to get the whole thing covered in buttercream for a crumb coat. Crumb coats basically remove all of the crumbs, cover the rough edges, and serve as the building block for carving details in the cake. The first picture is the first crumb coat and then the second picture is after I smoothed it out. I had to go back in to some spots to cover up thin areas of buttercream but this part is always crucial because once a cake is covered in fondant, then every single bump or flaw will show up... at least it does to me. 

I dropped the ball in taking pictures throughout this process so you'll have to forgive me for skipping some steps. But basically the next steps included covering the cake in black and white fondant. I had to use black for the seat area and white for the front part of the sled (again, I apologize if I'm not using the correct lingo).  All of the detail was done with gumpaste and fondant.

Next up, I had to get the windshield on and make the indents for the lights.

Hooray for lights!! I found these little lights at Michael's a while back and they are great because they have tiny little batteries in them which eliminates the need for wires and battery packs! 

Then it was just about adding the final details. The track, the speedometer, the handlebars, the taillight etc. 

Once I had the cake on the board that I was going to transport the cake on, I was able to add the skis. I had also made some awesome foot rails (seriously, I need a snowmobile dictionary!!!) buuuut they broke into about 12 pieces when I tried putting them on.  No use in crying over spilled milk! The very last finishing touch was adding "snow" which was fluffy royal icing that I sprinkled with clear sprinkles. 

And here, my friends, is one of the professional pictures that Miss Amanda, of Amanda Krieg Photography took for me. She has a ton more on her Facebook page so make sure you check them out. 

When all was said and done I loved this cake. It challenged me in so many ways and when I sent a picture to Melissa before I delivered it, her reaction made EVERYTHING worth it. The long hours, the sleepless nights... everything. Making my clients smile and giving them something that they can always look back on and remember with such fondness.. it makes my job worth it. 

Thanks for reading and for your continued support! 

Always, 

Sarah