Hi,
I just competed in a master challenge for the Celebration of Cakes show here in Arizona. It was a regular judged cake and sugar art show along with 3 teams of 3 competing in the live challenge.

We had 10 hours the first day and 6 hours on day two to complete our cake. We had to bring all our tools and supplies into a make shift "kitchen" which was in the food court of the mall with lots of spectators. The cakes had to be at least 5 feet tall, 4 feet wide and have a moving part.

The theme of the challenge was Celebrating Arizona's Centennial so our cake design had the 5 C's of Arizona:

1st tier- copper: pile of copper made of rice cereal treats and fondant dusted with copper luster dust. Rotating pick ax made of fondant spinning on top.

2nd tier- climate: styrofoam sun spackled with royal icing and hand cut out gum paste rays; airbrushed.

3rd tier- cotton: custom made wooden cotton gin (filled with cake) covered in fondant, impression mat on box and airbrushed with silver sheen. Cotton candy formed into cotton balls spilling out.

4th tier- citrus: 12 tall basket cake carved to shape covered in fondant. Rice cereal lemons, limes, oranges and grapefruit covered in fondant, textured with a wire brush then airbrushed.

5th tier- cactus: 10 tall cactus cake carved to shape, covered in fondant; airbrushed. Dry spaghetti spines. Gum paste flowers dusted with pearl dust and steamed.

-Bottom tier- cattle: 12 tall cake carved to shape, silhouette of bull head freehand cut out in fondant, airbrushed sunset, fondant barbed wire around top of cake.

-Base Board- 16 tall Grand Canyon made of rice cereal and styrofoam, carved to shape, covered in fondant and airbrushed. Buttercream dirt airbrushed.

-Logo Sign- Fondant covered 12 styrofoam circle with fondant hand cut out logo and letters.

The cake was over 7 feet tall when complete and stood on a moving table which made it over 11 feet tall from the floor. It had at least 200 servings of cake, 7 ½ jumbo bags of rice krispie cereal, 42 bags of marshmallows, 60lbs of fondant, 30lbs of buttercream, 6 bags of cotton candy, gum paste, styrofoam and a disco ball.(to make the pick ax rotate on top)

We worked super hard and had a huge crowd watching as we were stacking and finishing it off. We had to move the cake to the front of the stage to be judged. We thought our design was awesome and every single person who came by told us it was easily the best one there.

We placed 2nd simply due to the fact that we got a technical deduction for the percentage of styrofoam to cake ratio. SOO disappointed. But I'm super proud of this cake!! It was clearly the winner!

Thanks for looking!

KimAZ

The pictures don't seem to want to load at the moment. Will try again.

Wow what a cake! Great job

We rocked it! Loved our cake and everyone watching was disappointed in the results. I am so proud of us!

Oh my - thats one tall cake - well done on your achievement - be thrilled with your placing - many would love to be that talanted to even think of doing something that fabulous.

Again - well done

Bluehue.

Very well done! I was working all day Saturday but my wife did swing by and see a few minutes of the live cake challenge in the late afternoon and she said yours was easily going to win it. It sucks that they deducted the points for styro.

Photo is here :
http://cakecentral.com/gallery/2081521