Friday, August 2, 2013

Old Man Cake

My friend Dianna asked me to make a cake for her husbands birthday.  She wanted an old man sitting in his chair.  I know Mike is a good golfer (scratch!), hunter, and enjoys a beer now and then.  So I came up with this cake.  The top layer is chocolate with raspberry filling and the bottom is French Butter cream with Lemon Filling.  They smelled so good while baking!

I made the "old man" sitting in a leather chair with a wooden table next to him.  I couldn't figure out how to do the beer bottle and I know he enjoys his morning coffee so I made a coffee cup. I will try to do the beer bottle next year.

Because Mike is a hunter I knew he had bagged a polar bear that he has mounted in his house.  I decided to do a bear rug.  It came out pretty cool. 

I put a putter and ball on the "green" where I placed the chair and table.  There is a small sand trap on the side and I put his age on the flag stick. 


I used the Marshmallow Fondant that I have used in all my other recipes along with the same Butter cream frosting.  It was humid and I had to freeze the cakes.  So I learned that when you are working on a frozen cake as it thaws it becomes very moist.  It was easy to stick the stripes on but I didn't want to touch it much as it left marks.

I didn't know how I was going to mold the old man so I looked on line for some ideas and printed them off.  More to get perspective than anything else.  I started with the jeans and worked my way up.  I did the head last.  I used half gum paste and half fondant mixed together.  The hands were hard and the face was tough.  It took me several times to get it right. 

I printed off a copy of Golf World magazine and superimposed Mikes face onto the front cover. On the back I also put old folks ads like Geritol, Viagra, and Centrum Silver.

I know that Dianne loved the cake and I hope that Mike did too.

Happy Birthday Mike....keep living life to the fullest!

Happy Birthday Mike.  Live life to the fullest!