It’s a bit of a strange title for a blog post, I know, but I just wasn’t sure what else to call this cake! Whatever you call it, it was quite the cake, for quite the wonderful retiree.
I was told that the guest of honour has some awesome plans for her retirement. Among these, she wants to take some cooking classes, spend more time baking (I approve!), and travel the world. She also just got a new cat, and she and her husband have plans to get a blue Corvette (hey, it’s no kitty, but it’s shinier and better on road trips).
I was asked to incorporate all of those elements into one snazzy cake for her farewell bash. So… here it is!
Each tier featured one of her retirement plans. The bottom tier was dedicated to cooking: a big pot full of spaghetti and meatballs spilled out onto the cake board, surrounded by various cooking paraphernalia (everything is edible, even the “wooden” spoon!). Hopefully when she’s got time to cook at her leisure, she’ll be a little neater than I was and keep the spaghetti in the pot!
The “meatballs” are chocolate-covered cake balls, the “tomato sauce” is made from a base of corn syrup with chocolate cookie crumb “ground beef”, and everything else is either gumpaste or fondant, including the “marble” countertop. I used a rice krispy wedge to hold the lid open (some of the party-goers chowed down on this krispy wedge as soon as it was disassembled – it was described as “so worth it”.)
The middle tier was a classic “pretty cake”, dolled up with pink details on its own edible plate, as a shout-out to her plans to bake more often in her retirement. The top tier was a 3D globe, representing her desire to travel the world (and, to me, representing an extra challenge to make a sphere appear to balance on the edge of an already-tilted middle tier!).
On the very tippy-top, her fuzzy new feline friend was piloting the company jet to take her off on her adventures.
Down in front was the retiree herself, accompanied by the always-dreamy Fabio. The initial idea was for to be her husband in the car with her, but he declined when asked to provide a picture of himself. Her colleagues threatened that if he didn’t, they’d get me to put in Fabio instead, and he actually liked the idea! So, open-shirted Fabio it was, complete with rippling abs and fully-formed nipples (not something I’ve often sculpted from fondant!). Oh my!
So, there you have it. A snazzy retirement cake! Best of luck to the retiree – I hope she has at least as much fun in her retirement as I did making this cake for her!
