KCs Birthday Cake.....& A Personal Revelation.

KC's Birthday was April 20th. I did a little something to surprise him, I baked him a cake. Every year I make him whatever flavor cake he wants. He picked out my cookie cake and changed the chips to white chocolate and peanut butter chips. Done. What he didn't realize is that I was accepting a challenge for his cake that he made as a joke. He saw some cake on TV that some Chef made that was decorated with fondant and all that and said

"Why don't you make me a cake like that?" 

So I ,jokingly asked him what kind of cake he'd want and he said  Metal gear themed cake. Metal Gear is his FAVORITE video game series. So I decided a week before his birthday that I needed to make this happen.

I am  by no means a trained Chef, but in the end I KNOW this cake came out great. I winged it for the most part, making up the plan as I went, in probably a most unorthodox way. But here it is. 

I decided to make my own fondant. Nuts I know. But it was the same price to buy it premade as it was to buy the ingredients and make it. I also read that it tastes better when you make it yourself. So here is my mess.

It was STICKY. I made 2 batches because I had NO idea how far it would stretch or how it would fit on the square sheet cake I was making. Let's just say there are still colored balls of fondant in my fridge. One batch would have done it.

It took me 2 tries on almost everything i rolled out because I wasn't putting enough stuff on the counter to keep it from sticking. And the layer that ended up on the cake (above) still had a line in it, but it would get covered so I left it alone.

I had no idea how to do this so I printed out a page of paper on the printer and used it as sort of my stencil. I used my crappy pizza cutter and KC's exacto knife to cut it all out. You can also see what the finished picture should look like.

I cut around the fox part after cutting out the black layer. I whittled my stencil down to nothing by the time I was done, but the method worked.  I also did a little bit of free handing of the smaller spots with more detail. I think I added to it and changed it and fixed it a hundred times before KC got home. I piped the words on with reg icing I colored with the same food coloring as the fondant. Some of the small details I would have fixed but I had neither the time or energy. It took me about 5 hours start to finish to do it.
And now my baby....

I waited with it covered in foil until KC got home then bombarded him with the video camera as soon as he walked in. The video can be seen Here.  He was stunned.
I think he liked it.

I really didn't wanna cut it at all, but it turned his 25th birthday at midnight and I told him he could cut it, but only the white part, I was NOT ready to cut the fox yet.

It was yummy and the marshmallow fondant was actually tasty! I was really happy with it. We saved the rest until a few days later when we went out to eat with a bunch of friends to celebrate. We brought the cake with us. We figured cutting it with people you love will make the sting less. It did, I guess. LOL. We did eat away at the white parts through the week but the fox stayed in tact.
One final shot before it is gone.

The aftermath.

We didn't take any cake home that night. It was hard to see my fox cut but everyone loved the cake and that made it all the better.

So what is this personal revelation I wrote of in the title? I want to do this for a living. Seriously. It was hard work and time consuming but I had so much fun and I was alone doing it. So I am looking into classes to hone my apparently god given skills and we will see where we can go from there. I need to save up a bit but I am def making baking and some decorating a weekly thing for me to keep into it.
Anyone need any cakes made? :)