Han Solo Would be Happy

This was a fun cake. I even did a good deal of picture taking correctly. A good friend asked me to do this cake. It was after much consideration though because she had hoped to do both Star Wars cookies and a Millennium Falcon cake for her sons party. Only she had never really worked her way into creating cakes or baking much yet. So in the end - and after I asked/begged to do the cake - she asked me to do the cake and she went forward with her plans for the cookies.

As you can see we started with a 1/4 sheet cake and a rounded cake. The rounded cake was done by baking inside of my medium size glass mixing bowl. Much easier then trying to carve a round shape.

Once the stacking was done I carved out the shape of the ship. Yes there was a lot of waste in thrown away cake - but better that cake hit the trash can then that it hit my families tummy every time a cake is carved - otherwise there would be a lot more Waist in my family (get it? Waste/Waist - it's early the jokes are lame). Still I was happy with the initial shape.

Having a life size replica of the ship - we have a toy Millennium Falcon the kids received a few years back with chunky Star Wars figures - very cute - anyway, the replica of the ship (not pictured) was helpful to look at. I used it to figure out where to carve in some indentations.

You can also see that I attached a cupcake as the cockpit on the side. Remember Luke in there shooting at the rebel fighters?

Finally it was time for the crumb coat - or dirty icing as Ben likes to term it (he watches a lot of Cake Boss). This was a task with this cake because there were so many crumbs due to almost every edge and surface being cut on that the crumbs made it really hard to get an even somewhat smooth surface.

But I moved forward. Created some of the indentations again over the cuts to make sure that when the final icing was placed it would not look too chunky.

And I walked away to let it dry. Sometimes walking away for a bit can make a mess look more reasonable when you return. I do this with any craft type project I have that becomes wonky in my head. Of course - the icing also had to set. If I had added the final icing over this it would have just mixed into the wet crumb coat icing.

Now honestly, when I first came back my head wasn't cleared up. The thing looked like a really badly formed soccer ball to me. Lucky for me I say things to my kids like "don't give up" - "keep moving toward the goal" - "never look backward only forward" - "you can do it" - "I believe in you". They all came by and said - "wow cool" and when they noticed my frustration they used my words to encourage me. And with that I moved foward.

Another fun thing about this cake. It was one of the first few times that I used chocolate as a decorating component in the cake. See the satellite dish thing? That is made from white chocolate chips that I melted and dyed the color of the icing. Using a small ramakin I covered with plastic wrap I smoothed some melted chocolate inside the dish - vaguely shaped it to look like a satellite and let it sit to dry. When I popped it out it was really cool. Maybe not perfect looking - but it worked perfect and it gives me hope to try stuff like that again on future cakes!

At the end of the project my kids and hubby were all cheering how great the cake looked. I have to admit - at the time it still seemed a bit wonky - but after walking away and coming back I even had to agree that it was very cool. I am my own worst critique and I had to pat myself on the back for completing this. The Birthday Boy - he loved it!! What a cool present to gift!

This cake was obviously Chocolate - no chips because it is impossible to carve a tiny chocolate chip. Vanilla Buttercream icing was the rest.