My dad just called and said "How would you like to make $50?" Ok - cool - he needs a cake....
The cake is for a neighbor (I have known this man all my life) who is turning 88. They are having a suprise party for him and need a cake for 50 people. (Sheet cake?!?!) They have left the design completely up to me, and that is where I need some serious help. Here is what I have to go on:
name: Stan
turning 88
worked on the Alaskan pipeline
makes the BEST homemade soup
great sence of humor
Any and all ideas will be appreciated!! Thanks!!
That would be cute! Since he likes to make soup, you could stack several of the same size round cakes and make it look like a stock pot with soup in it. That would be easier for me than making or supporting a bowl shaped cake.
You could make a recipe cake. There are some samples in the gallery.
It could go something like this.
Recipe: Stan's Birthday
Prep Time: 88 years
Serves: Everyone
Ingredients:
1 Great guy!
1 awesome cake =)
Room full of friends and family
Lots of love and memories
Directions: Mix all ingredients together and enjoy. Happy 88th bithday Stan!
an idea
it's soup coming out of the pipe line.
pipe could be real pvc to help hold it all together.
I'd like to peek inside your brain sometime... just to see how you come up with these ideas. 
I like the big pot or bowl of soup idea. I would make it Alphabet soup that spells out his name then under that is turning 88.
BTW you need to tell your dad that $50 for a cake that feeds 50 is a VERY good price. Hopefully it will cover your costs. But I know I'm like you and for family I would do it too. In fact I'm so bad that most of the time I don't even charge family for the supplies.
an idea
it's soup coming out of the pipe line.
pipe could be real pvc to help hold it all together.
Love this idea but I would have it going the other way... the pipe coming out of the soup as the pipeline's "secret ingredient" or some sort of play like that... write Alaskan Pipeline across the pipe and a little "secret ingredient" plaque on the bowl of his homemade soup. (Would make a great sculpted cake) but not by me lol!
I was thinking a BCT, The design a can of soup the label that has something cleaver wrote on it , All I could come up with is Stans Birthday soup. Est the year he was born. Or a pipeline that has 88 coming out of it, With Happy Birthday Stan wrote on the pipe
Good luck
I also like the idea of a soup pot/kettle with a pipeline, maybe like it's being piped in through the back. The soup could be "Stan's secret to a long life" Alphabet soup is a good idea too.
I like Doug's idea (CLEVER! & QUICK)but it may not be as easy to assemble.
You could just make a rim by cutting out a little of the top cake (or by building it up with stiff icing). You could tint your icing inside the pot a reddish color or a yellowish color depending on what kind of soup you're going for.
Ok - the ideas are flowing now......
maybe 4 cakes stacked up - covered in silver fondant - handles on the side - vegetable soup, so fondant veggies and letters - maybe gel as the broth - use the letters to spell out happy birthday -
hmmmmmmmmm
should I have the pot be the whole cake - or maybe a pot of soup sitting on another cake (square) covered with a fondant tablecloth?
I guess it would depend on how much cake you want and how creative you are feeling. The tablecloth idea sounds really cute though and that would give you somewhere else to do writing if you need it.
I liked Dougs idea, that was great. The one about a pot on the table might be easier. You could do a sheet cake and then place to pot on top which would be smaller. If you do one big pot that would have to be one big honken cake! A sheet would be easier to decorate and then the little pot could be another cake incase you need more cake. Also, then you could still do the "Soup Recipe" idea since there would be more room to right. Afew ideas rolled into one!!
That is alot of people to make a cake for and like someone else said, $50 would be like giving it away!! Good luck!
I love the pot idea! Making it smaller and putting it on a sheet would make it a LOT easier too! As far as the "soup" goes, you could use extra fondant or rice krispie treats on top of the cake in a ring shape, to make the top rim of the pot, cover it in BC with the rest of the cake, then put your fondant on! That way the soup can be down inside the pot!
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