"Hi, we're having a birthday party for my daughter, and we'd like you to make the cake. Can you make a high heel?"
"Sure thing. How big do you need it?"
"Enough to feed 150 people, and we'd like it to match her dress. I'll have her send you a picture."
"Wow."This time we had more time to plan and prepare. :)
I met with the the mother and daughter in their home with cameras rolling. We'd already had a pretty good idea what we were looking for because I'd done some lengthy research on high heels, their construction, etc. I found a nice designer high heel with a red sole (I'm told those are pretty pricey) and started sketching designs for supports. We knew we were going to "fill in" the shoe so that there was enough cake for everyone.
During the meeting, they came up with some pretty rockin' ideas for the shoe. Fuchsia to match the dress, lots of sparkle, edible diamonds in the silver leaf of the design, silver soles, and a personalized "brand" name for Hope.
After conversing with my father (a.k.a. the carpentry guru for That Little Cake Place) we designed and constructed the "skeleton" of the shoe. This was started on Monday night and completed on Tuesday.
We added green Styrofoam under the angled portion and sculpted it to give us the ball and heel shape of the shoe.
I started baking Monday night with the help of my sous chefs. We baked 4 half-sheet cakes in vanilla flavor Monday, baked 2 additional half-sheets on Tuesday, and made all of the pink cream cheese icing. Wednesday evening I started putting together the cake and realized that we hadn't baked enough, so I did an emergency baking session Thursday morning before I went to work.
While I finished putting the cake together and covering it with icing, my assistant, Amy, tinted the other half of the fondant fuchsia.
With the sole and insole covered with gray fondant that will be painted silver later, and some fuchsia on the toe.
Completely covered in fondant.
The following are "finished" shots on my kitchen counter. I'll admit the lighting isn't all that great so you can't see the true color, but you get the idea. We covered the entire cake in pink cake sparkles to make it look like a sequined shoe, put the silver leaf pattern on and added clear edible diamonds for emphasis.
You can barely see it, but there are fuchsia edible diamonds around the top edge of the shoe. Here is Hope's "brand" on the insole.
And more various angles for your viewing pleasure...
And here it is at the venue. There was better lighting there, as you can tell...
There were also lights built into the board so that when the lights were dimmed, they shone on the cake and made it sparkle. When Amy and I delivered the cake at 2 p.m. Friday, it was just us and the film crew. They added the sticky notes to make sure no one would touch the cake, mistaking it for a non-edible center piece.
In speaking with Hope's mother later on, she said no one believed it was cake until they cut it. That's the kind of compliment that makes my day and gives me a warm fuzzy feeling about what I'm doing.
Happy birthday, Hope!
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