Recently my friend
Rose invited me to a surprise 40th birthday party for her boyfriend, known in certain circles as Lord Kellfire. I offered to make a cake, and Rose accepted, and it all seemed innocent enough.
And then...
Mancake happened.
Mancake is a portrait of a man! Made of cake!
First let me say, I find it really hard to make cakes for dudes. For girls it's easy -- cakes are naturally girly and pretty and frilly -- but for guys, often nothing seems right. So after a lot of thinking and sketching and brainstorming, after many ideas were ideaized and tried and thrown out, it was decided that I would make a portrait of Lord Kellfire in the style of a black velvet painting. On a cake.
Of course, after I had committed to the idea I realized I had no idea whatsoever how to do such a thing. Portrait on a cake? What?
But I didn't let that stop me! Working from photographs, first I made several "sketches" in royal icing, then decided on a design.
I gathered my ingredients and baked up four half-sheet cakes and a boatload of buttercream.
Figuring out how to transfer my design to fondant was tricky, and I'm not gonna lie, I considered some non-edible solutions. (Can you trace an outline onto fondant with artists' tracing paper? Would that be safe to eat? It doesn't matter, because it didn't work -- so I didn't have to run the risk of poisoning anyone.)
In the end, I devised a pinprick-transfer method that worked great. (More on that another time.)
I painted the image with paint made from Luster Dust mixed with vodka. I did not drink any of this vodka, at least not until the cake was done.
Creepy mancake with no face! This is how it looked before and after piping the outlines. Not very promising before the piping. This was only hours before the party, but no, I was
not worried that my cake was going to be a flop and that I was going to
ruin everything. Uh, not at all.
The finishing touch was the gilded frame, made from fondant and royal icing, and a few different types of gold food coloring.
And that's all it took, over the course of a few days, to whip up this dapper confectionery gentleman!
This cake was huge. I honestly could barely carry it out of my apartment! I think the plan was for it to feed 50 people at the party, and it did all that with about half of it leftover. Last I heard, Kelly's head is still in a freezer in Brooklyn somewhere. (Take that, Walt Disney.)
Also, I am pleased to report that I am dutifully sticking to
my pledge to always match my outfits to my desserts!
The cake was cut into and devoured with much gusto!
The party was really lovely -- there were mountains of barbeque, lots of toasting and much merriment had by all.
Happy ladies eating mancake!
And finally, a side-by-side comparison of the man and the cake. I can barely tell which one is the cake man and which one is the flesh and blood man. Success!
Special thanks to Mindy Tucker who took all of the lovely party photographs.
Dear readers, thank you for joining me here on this little blog - but the time has come for Manhattan Craft Room and I to pack up and move to a spiffy new site. So please adjust your bookmarks and join me over at the new brettbara.com. See you there!
Hooray! After two years in development, my book is finally on sale! Read all about it and enter the first of many giveaways over on my new web site, www.brettbara.com. Please move your bookmarks and join me over there!
The perils of living with a craft lady: you get scraps of fabric stuck to your head when you try to take a nap.
And your feet.
After a long and lonely two months of living couchless, my new sofa finally arrived! It's the Maddox from Room & Board, covered in Vance grey, which is a velvet, and which happens to match a certain furry person who lives with me.
The matching of cat and sofa wasn't really intentional. I'm just loving charcoal grey these days. So you know, I picked out a cat in my favorite color then I picked out a sofa in my favorite color. And the rest is history.
I wanted to get a portrait of kitty next to her matching couch, but she refused to cooperate. I swear, when she doesn't want her photo taken, she closes her eyes. Are you kidding me?
That's better. Thank you. Now would you please go pose next to the couch?
Fine then. You're the boss.
Rarebit Productions and I have been hard at work making three web videos that will be released next week in conjunction with my book, which will also be released next week (hooray!). The videos will show you step-by-step how to sew three different projects, and will also give you a sneak peek at what else is in the book.
We've been shooting in my apartment, which means my little space has been transformed into a bustling photo studio. There was a big green screen in my dining room, lights and stands and tripods in every room, and some of my very favorite creative people were there to help. (Top photo is Kelly from Rarebit; above photo is my friend Anthony, and Rose from Rarebit.)
I made a big 'ol pile of pillows for one of the videos, which will show you how easy it is to install a zipper. (Seriously, it has become my mission to make the world see how easy zippers can be!) My friend Christina appears in this video with me, but in the shoot craziness that day I didn't manage to get a photo of the two of us.
We snuck up on my building's rooftop at dusk to shoot a little scene with the city skyline in the background. The funny part was that we spotted my landlord out in the backyard 4 stories below, and since we didn't want to get busted for having an unapproved photo shoot on the roof, we conducted the whole shoot in whispers, which made it an extremely silly giggle-fest. This group is part crew, part pretend-party-goers for the pretend-party scene we were filming.
Brooklyn at dusk with Manhattan across the river, and pretend-party-goer Jeff.
My still-being-decorated craft room made an appearance in some shots.
Rarebit worked a little stop-motion action with this set (which was actually in their apartment). They spent one of their Friday nights filming this sequence, because they are just that awesome.
We hit the streets to film my friend Sara modeling a cute skirt which we show how to make in another video.
This cute skirt can be all yours and the video will show you how to make it so! (My friend Amy appears in this video as well, but alas I didn't get a photo of the two of us on set.)
The last project demonstrated in the videos is this set of fabric bowls, which we propped in this cute tableau.
Mancake happened.
Of course, after I had committed to the idea I realized I had no idea whatsoever how to do such a thing. Portrait on a cake? What?
But I didn't let that stop me! Working from photographs, first I made several "sketches" in royal icing, then decided on a design.
I gathered my ingredients and baked up four half-sheet cakes and a boatload of buttercream.
I painted the image with paint made from Luster Dust mixed with vodka. I did not drink any of this vodka, at least not until the cake was done.
And that's all it took, over the course of a few days, to whip up this dapper confectionery gentleman!
This cake was huge. I honestly could barely carry it out of my apartment! I think the plan was for it to feed 50 people at the party, and it did all that with about half of it leftover. Last I heard, Kelly's head is still in a freezer in Brooklyn somewhere. (Take that, Walt Disney.)
The cake was cut into and devoured with much gusto!
The party was really lovely -- there were mountains of barbeque, lots of toasting and much merriment had by all.
Happy ladies eating mancake!
And finally, a side-by-side comparison of the man and the cake. I can barely tell which one is the cake man and which one is the flesh and blood man. Success!
