I made this cake surrounded by moving boxes in my new appartment:
Lucas mor ønskede sig en McQueen Kage, og det burde ikke være et problem, men jeg må indrømme, at jeg blev lidt nervøs, da hun sagde, at hun havde et billede af hvordan den skulle se ud. For det første, så kan jeg aldrig kopiere et billede helt. For det andet, hvis jeg kunne, så er jeg ikke sikker på, at jeg ville have lyst til at kopiere fuldstændigt - man vil jo gerne sætte sit eget præg på kagen. Og for det tredje, så kan jeg jo ikke være sikker på, at den der oprindeligt har lavet kagen vil bryde sig om det - nogen ser det som smiger, og andre føler at man stjæler deres idéer. Jeg blev ikke mindre nervøs, da hun sagde, at hun selv havde taget billedet inde ved en bager, men jeg vidste, at kagen så enten var ret simpel (en bager skal jo tjene penge på sådan en kage, og kan ikke bruge så lang tid på at pynte den, som kagenørder gør), eller også var det en total fantastisk kage, lavet af en entusiast, og som jeg aldrig ville kunne leve op til.... det var så heldigvis en af de simple, så jeg pyntede alligevel lidt på den.
Lucas' mother wanted a McQueen Cake, which shouldn't be a problem, but admittedly I got nervous when she said she had a picture of what she wanted it to look like. First of all, I can never totally copy a picture. Second, if I could, I am not sure I would want to - you sort of want to put your own touch on a cake. And lastly, you often don't know how the original decorator feels about you copying their work - some find it flattering, and some feel that you are stealing their ideas/design. I didn't get any calmer, but at least hopeful, when she said it was a picture she took herself at a bakery. After all that meant the cake would either be simple (those bakers have to make money on these cakes and can't spend the hours decorating, that cakegeeks do), or it would be a fantastic cake, made by some enthusiast whose work I could never live up to.... luckily it was the former, so I changed the rather blocky looking appearance with visible joins, and added some details.
Kagen var lavet af Drømmekagebunde med Skildpaddecreme og Jordbærmousse, smurt op med Chokoladesmørcreme og overtrukket med Pettinice fondant.
The cake was made of Dreamcake layers with Caramel-chocolate Creme and Strawberry Mousse, coated in Chocolate Buttercream and covered with Pettinice fondant.
Da det ikke altid er nemt at skære en fyldt kage i form, lavede jeg nogen afvigelser fra min normale fremgangsmåde. Jeg rørte lidt af luften ud af kage-dejen før jeg bagte den, så kagen blev lidt tungere men også mere skærefast. Desuden sparede jeg på bærfyldet (som erfaringsmæssigt giver mig de største problemer), og kompenserede ved at bruge mere af Skildpaddecremen. Og faktisk drillede kagen slet ikke. Bilen er lavet af en 23x33 cm kage, hvor en tredjedel er skåret fra i bredden, den tredjedel er så halveret i længden og placeret ovenpå kagen, og så er kagen skåret i form, og alt der er skåret fra, er brugt igen:
It isn't always easy to carve a filled cake, so I made some changes to my usual routine. I stirred the batter a little extra to deflate it a bit before baking, which makes a denser and not so airy cake, but it is better suited fur cutups. I also used less of the berry filling than normally (as experience tells me, this is the filling that causes most sliding and bulging issues), and compensated by using extra of the caramel-chocolate filling. And the cake actually wasn't any trouble to cut.
The cake is made from a 9x13 inch oblong cake, where a third of the cake has been cut of the width. this third has then been halfed lengthwise and placed on top of the cake, before carving the cake and all cutoffs have been reused elsewhere on the cake:
Jeg skar lidt kage ud med en cirkel-udstikker, for at lave plads til hjulene, inden kagen blev smurt op. Kagen blev smurt op over 3 gange, men jeg har kun billede fra det første lag kom på:
I cut some cake using round cutters, to make room for the wheels, before crumbcoating the cake. The cake was covered in 3 layers of buttercream, but I only have a picture of the first layer:
Kagen var nem nok at overtrække, og det var nemt nok at håndmale flammerne på, omend det ville have været hurtigere, hvis jeg havde haft rød pulver farve (Det skal jeg altså huske, næste gang jeg bestiller hjem). Til gengæld tog det lang tid at skære "lightyear" ud i fri form i 8 eksemplarer - men mest fordi jeg spildte et par timer med en skarp kniv, som bare ikke var skarp nok, inden jeg tog mig sammen til at rode rundt i flyttekasserne, indtil jeg fandt min skalpel. Jeg hader forresten bogstavet "G"...
The cake was easy enough to cover, and it was easy to handpaint the flames on the decorations, although it would have been faster if I had had some red dusting powder (I really need to remember to order some). On the other hand it took quite some time to cut out 8 copies of "lightyear" in freehand - but mostly because I wasted a couple of hours cutting it with a sharp knife, but not being happy with the result, I scrapped it, rummaged through the moving boxes for my scalpel and made new ones. Btw - I now hate the letter 'G'...
Alt i alt, så var der faktisk ikke noget, der gik galt denne gang, så jeg var tilfreds med resultat, og det var Lucas mor heldigvis også :)
All in all, nothing really went wrong this time, and I was happy with the result - and fortunately so was Lucas' mother :)
