50th birthday bowling cake!

A friend of mine asked me to make a 50th birthday cake as a surprise for her husband.  She wanted it to have a bowling theme.  I looked around on Cake Central and found a couple that looked doable, and let her decide which kind I should make.  She decided on a cake by Carmen that looked like this.   We talked about colors, and she decided on red, white and blue because those are the colors of the United States Bowling Congress and the birthday party is going to be on the 4th of July.  I sent a couple messages to Carmen through Cake Central to find out how she made her bowling pins.  She was very helpful.  Thanks Carmen!  So that’s where I started, on Friday night, making the bowling pins.  I copied an image of a bowling pin off the computer, then rolled out the gumpaste and cut around the template with a sharp knife.  Then I left them out on a flat area to dry.

Next I baked the cake.  I baked a 10 inch dark devils food cake that was about 3 inches high.  I also baked a half of a sports ball, to server as the bowling ball.  Once the cakes cooled, I wrapped them and left them overnight.

The next morning I leveled the cake off and then torted it (that’s a new term I learned in class this week!).  I put on an icing dam and filled it with chocolate icing.

Then I covered the cake with buttercream.  Here’s what it looked like when I iced it…

See how uneven it is?  I waited about 15 minutes, then smoothed the icing with a Viva paper towel, a hint I had read about on either Cake Central or Wilton’s forums, I don’t remember which.  After the smoothing, the cake looked like this… It’s almost as smooth as fondant!

Next I started working with the fondant.  I had to mix red, which I heard was hard to do, but maybe since I only had to mix a little bit, it wasn’t so hard.  It seemed to turn out pretty red.  Also I used some blue I had leftover from the Duck cake, and tinted it a darker blue.  Then I rolled it out and cut some long skinny triangles and stars and started attaching them to the cake.

Next I cut out the holes in the bowling ball.  Lisa wanted me to make sure they looked like a real bowling ball with two smaller ones and one larger one.  I hope she likes how it turned out!.  Then I iced the bowling ball and covered it with black fondant.  I bought the black fondant at Capt. Albert Goodthings in Salem.  I had heard it was hard to get fondant really black by mixing it yourself.  This was my first time using a different brand of fondant too.  This was Satin Ice instead of the Wilton fondant I usually use.  Then I set the bowling ball in the middle of the cake.

Then I made a little plaque that said Happy 50th Birthday Scott and attached it to the  front.

Then I iced some starts around the plaque, but was realizing I didn’t like the dull look of the bowling ball.  So I used a little shortening to smooth out the ball and make it shine.

Last thing was the bowling pins.  I decided to just use 3 because I didn’t want to make the cake too crowded.

I think it turned out really good!  I delivered it tonight, and the party is tomorrow.  I hope nothing happens to it between now and then!  It makes me nervous, I’ve never delivered a cake so far before the party.  What if something shifts or falls overnight!  I did remove the pins and left instructions for inserting them tomorrow, so I hope that works out well.  I hope it looks great, tastes great, and the birthday boy enjoys it!