I work in a rural community hospital, and as a hobby, I make cakes. I've been asked to help with a week-long celebration of the work that is involved in caring for patients who are having surgery. My task is to make the cake for those who provide these services, about 100 people, and in sheet-cake style. I've made many stacked cakes & novelty cakes, so I can work with buttercream, fondant, and more.... I am planning (per request) on a large rectangular sheetcake, but I'm at a loss as to what to put on a cake such as this. They love my novelty cakes, and are excitedly awaiting the "CAKE FOR US" which I have yet to even mentally create!
To get an idea of the enormity of the workforce involved, there are folks which include preoperative staff (nurses, aides, secretaries, housekeeping) then intraoperative staff (anesthesia, surgeons, nurses, surgical assistants, radiology staff, electronic equipment handlers, cleaning staff, and managerial staff), and then post-operative staff (more nurses, ... you get the picture.
HOW can I make a cake that encompasses such a valuable & hard-working team for this "Perioperative Services Week" celebration?
I would welcome any ideas!
Welcome to the forum. Go to Search and type in Hospital and view the cakes in the gallery of photos. On page 1 there are a couple of cute ideas with band-aids, a red cross, stethoscope, etc. You can also Search: doctor, get well, thank you and see what other cakers have created. Post a picture of what you come up with, we'd love to see it.
Thank you! I'll head there now... and by the way.. how DO you post pics on this site?
As far as I can tell, right now you aren't able to post pictures within a forum. This site is HUGE (millions of individual posts) and the avatar and picture posting features have been broken for a couple of months now.
Since I don't know much about digital cameras or computers, my niece created a free site on shutterfly.com then I put that site (where my cake pictures are) as a link in my profile. Click on the www link at the bottom of this post and it will take you to my site. If you want to set up your own shutterfly site for photos it is free!
It's too bad they want a sheet cake. I was going to suggest a tiered hexagon cake, with a little photo or whatever representing the different professions on each panel. Then little fondant figures of the professions again situated around the cake tiers.
I have trouble coming up with sheet cake ideas, to me it's too much of a blank canvas.
More medical-related cakes. Rose-N-Crantz idea is great, that way is tidy and it makes some sense to put so many things together. You might be able to cut the corners to make more sides.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cakesbymay/4464083457/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47415862@N08/4453709622/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26247568@N04/3481945267/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bathbabycakes/3578759010/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/torontocakes/4531797068/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/magic_cakes/3741271525/
leahk, good idea. Here's a link to 3 pages of cakes done with the Operation Game motif:
http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&meta=search&type=full&search=operation
Thank you! Since I can't post a pic, I can describe it for you!! I did end up making a 48"x20" sheetcake, with white buttercream basketweave to make an easier canvas...LOL..I'm not that skilled in making and keeping LARGE areas that smooth without using fondant. However, I incorporated fondant stamped letters along the front base/edge of the cake, which spelled out "Perioperative Services Week."
Over the top of the cake, I incorporated 2"x3" puzzle pieces in multi-colored fondant (I made a cookie cutter/fondant cutter by shaping a piece of aluminum) with each heart having the name of the different service-components written atop the puzzle piece . The top of the cake also had a wavy letter line stating across the cake "You're the heart of the caring puzzle," which had a fondant stethoscope placed near the center of the cake with the bell of the stethoscope placed next to a puzzle piece that simply had a heart-shaped symbol at its center.
Each of the groups came to me afterwards, sharing how excited they were to see their specialty recognized in the cake. Half white/half chocolate... the cake was gone in very little time.
Thanks again for your help!
I was going to suggest the Operation Game too. We did one. Everyone went crazy over it. It was loads of fun to make, and it wasn't difficult to do. Here is the link to the one we did. (We did the original version of the game) http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1772680
Edited to add: OOPS, guess I should have read ALL the way through before posting...
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