Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Making Hal 9000 – Part 4: I’m Afraid I Can’t Do That, Dave

Read part 1, part 2, and part 3 of the Hal 9000 Cake Project

Then next problem in the mission came from the cake, itself. Or, rather, from it’s covering.

Black fondant would have given me a smoother finish, but I don’t like to completely cover cakes in fondant. I don’t like eating that much fondant in one sitting. I prefer butter cream frosting so, I settled on chocolate frosting and a brown Hal.

I cut the cooled cake in half, placed one half on top the other, and glued them together with frosting. I next trimmed the sides to get the correct dimensions and a smoother edge. So far so good. The trouble was, the frosting wouldn’t stick. Or rather, it stuck too much. The crumb of the cake was so tender that whenever I tried to spread it over a trimmed side, it would tear the cake apart. It didn’t matter how much I whipped and mixed and soften the frosting, every stroke with the knife tore piece after piece of cake away from my beautiful rectangle.

Unlike David Bowman, my shipmates weren’t dead. My wife knows that when she sees me sitting at the table with my head in my hands and swearing, it’s a pretty clear sign that something is wrong. Responding to my distress call, she came over, assessed the situation, and suggested I put the cake in the freezer for a little while.

My wife has taken one more cake decorating classes than I have. That’s not hard to do, considering I’ve never taken any. The point is, she knows of what she speaks. She just doesn’t like the actual work involved in decorating cakes, so doesn’t do it very often She happy to let me be the glutton for punishment that I am.

The freezer trick worked wonders. Unfortunately, I had to make a run to the store to pick up more supplies. I ran out of chocolate frosting 3/4’s of the way through.

Things were looking up, though. I had the frosted cake, and a defective candy eye. The rest was just details.

No comments: