It's my third cake, but only my second to be presented to someone - the very first was a rough draft of my first "production" cake.

So you may have read the "please help" threads - I got through it! The weather did not help, but it remained in "decent" condition and the partygoers were happy. If this is all too vague thus far, my apologies, read on.

This cake was a lighthouse, for my mom's 50th birthday. And it was to have various theme elements from her areas of interest added to it... in the end I had to concede that I could not make intricate figures out of gumpaste, so the finished product was a tract of land (two-layer yellow/coconut cake) jutting out into water (icing), with grass (coconut) and a beach (yellow cake remnant covered in icing), and a lighthouse (7 layers of chocolate cake, covered in fondant, top section made of gumpaste) perched atop the stretch of land, replete with an actual blinking light. For the theme adornments there were a miniature Barbie doll and 1957 Ford Fairlane (my family has a long history of being a Ford family, though I would have personally gone 57 Chevy if it were for me =0) ), as well as the classic 1960s Starship Enterprise dangling above. My mom has some diverse hobbies =0).

I learned a LOT with this one:
- Gumpaste is hard to make models out of
- Gumpaste is sticky as all getout
- Gumpaste with whipped icing on it will never, ever dry.
- Whipped icing does not make a good glue.
- Satin Ice is *wonderful* to work with, and tastes pretty good. I was proud when I made my own MMF for the first two, but I think SI is more reliable than my own.
- Fondant on a tall structure will sag when being driven about 90 minutes to its destination, in 90+ weather. Yes, even with the AC on.
- I personally need to better smooth the crumbcoated cake before applying the fondant
- Transporting the cake in separate sections (land, lighthouse, lighthouse top) was a very good idea.
- At the very last moment, Murphy's law *will* F with you.

I'm lucky to have pulled this one off, it seems - Sadly, as I was assembling the cake in place at the party, I had to employ some cardboard to support the "walk" around the top of the tower at the last minute, and the cake and fondant had started to slide down the supporting dowel so I had to fill with lots of icing (when I had made the lighthouse, the top of the tower part was slightly higher than the dowel and the light cage and walk rested flat on top). Slight panic moment there.

It didn't turn out fantastic, to my own standards, but hell, I'm just learning - and everybody and their mother (pun intended) took pictures of it, and promptly devoured it.

I hope it's okay that I have to gush here when I make a cake, but for something that I constantly don't really think I *can* do, I'm incredibly proud when I *do*.

I am going to post pictures ASAP, I uploaded them to my Photobucket but they seem to have disappeared on me.

Cheers!
Dave

Next up - that Darth Vader cake that I saw here on the forum - for my girlfriend. (Yes, it would appear that all the women in my life are sci-fi geeks, heh.) AND I only have a day and a half in which to do it, while she's out of town next weekend. I must be crazy.

Are you going to post a photo? Eager to see what it looked like!

OK, here goes - this may be a long post, but with plenty of pics - here's how a total newbie rolls =0)

OK, starting at somewhat the beginning, here is the first layer of the yellow cake, with my first stab at the green color for the frosting (this one too "toothpastey") and the coconut for between the layers...



Next I attempted to invert the second layer on top, when it promptly started coming apart... the large end-chunk you see on the other board came away when I depanned the cake though, not at this stage. Still, I glued it together as well as I could...



The big end piece became the beach =0)



Grassy area all frosted, second draft of the green color, still not perfect...



But the coconut grass DID get the perfect color. A 4:1 ratio of green to yellow food coloring here.



Frosted the beach - totally guessing at the color of "sand" to tiny the frosting with, a 7Y:2G:2R formula was dead on, the first try.



Forgetting entirely to snap a photo of building the lighthouse itself, it's 7 circles of chocolate cake stacked on a cardboard cake circle, with a dowel down through the center. After trying a couple times unsuccessfully to cover it with one piece of fondant, I decided to use strips instead, and go for the "paneled, angular" lighthouse look.



Closeup.... Please forgive the lumpiness.



And, a dry fit of the top, made of a few pieces of rolled gumpaste.



Skip a few more steps to the party.... As you can see, I painted the tower and the top (and put it in the fridge where it got softer and lumpier, and then drove it to the party in the heat, because I'm an idiot...) - and I frosted around the land and beach in white and then sprayed some blue colorant not quote up to the edge of the "water" to give it a little foam-topped-waves look. Added the themed "party favors" for my mom (my sister provided the hideous string for the Enterprise...) and there we have it. The light inside the lighthouse blinked, too - it was a self-contained flasher that you apparently put in party balloons.

Finished product:





Hope you like it
Dave

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Wowzer Dave! You did an amazing job on this, really wonderful.

great job!!!!

Wow!! Thank you for the pictures. It helps some of us visual learners. I think it looks great! I hope they were very appreciative.

Kathi

So cute! I love the Barbie and the car! Good job on a tough cake!!!
Erin

Now carving must be in your blood! On to bigger and better projects.....Great job!

WOW. That is fantastic. I'm a visual learner too and that is just so great. Awsome job

Dave that's a job very well done!

Thumbs UP!

That looks great. You should be very happy with it

Great job, Dave! I bet your mom was so proud!
Thanx for the pictures, I especially loved how the 'sandy beach' happened! lol

Great job and thank you for showing us how it all came together

its beautiful

It turned out beautiful!!!

She had to be thrilled, and so proud of her son for all the work and LOVE that went into this project..... WAY TO GO DAVE !!

great job...I love it..

The gumpaste topper is terrific and I love the lighthouse! Now, Dave, do you have a KA to make some good homemade buttercream? If your Mom doesn't like it, we'll excuse it this time. After this, mix some up and really knock their socks off. It's actually much easier to work with than that whipped stuff anyway, I promise.

Such a great job! I love how you made the stuck cake into your beach. It made a great addition to the project. Before you attempt the DV cake, get yourself some Americolor black gel color or I promise you'll wish you had when DV can't get past the R2-D2 color. Good luck! I can't wait to see the next one!

Great job! Looks like the broken cake gave the ideal look.

Wow, thanks everybody - getting the positive feedback is what makes me think I can do the impossible. =0)

My girl last night pointed out that I have apparently found a way to do my two favorite things at once, art and cooking. And I hadn't thought of it that way but hey, works for me!

@MGDqueen: I do have a KA - a 5qt Artisan. I would have gone with BC this time (like i did with the Nintendo cake), but my mom's specific favorite cake is yellow with coconut and betty crocker whipped "fluffy white" frosting - Had to stick with the tradition there =0)

More details I left out:
- the lighthouse remained on the small circular board (frosted over with a squeeze of cookie icing so you couldn't see the board)
- the lighthouse board was supported with lollipop sticks in the cake below

And yes, I'm very glad I had that beach idea when the cake broke - originally I was going to make gumpaste rocks for the waves to crash onto, but the beach seemed like a better idea anyway.

Dave ... what a fantastic cake!!! Thanks so much for the step-by-step ... it was really fun to see the whole thing come together! Your mom must have been so happy!