There was still a long night of decorating ahead before the cake was finished, but before we were ready for that, we’d had a couple of other challenges to figure out.
Given where we work, it had seemed right that we should have an official out of service notice for the truck. I had access to create a personalized form in our test environment, but then we needed to get it printed on something edible. Several emails with another cake decorating friend, followed by a couple of phone calls to local grocery stores … oh, plus one false start because I didn't think to ask about what file formats their software would accept … and we discovered the joy of printing with edible ink on rice paper to make the logos for the truck and our Out of Service CVSA Inspection for the truck's driver. It definitely paid to ask around since one store was almost half the cost of the other.
When we started planning we had two toy trucks to use. One that had great tires and one that had a cab shape we liked so that I could use it as a mold around which the gum paste could dry to get a smooth finish for the cab. Tightly wrapping the truck in plastic wrap solved the food safe problem. Spray on food colouring avoided the potential issue of gum paste fading as it dries. Even with a few issues of the spray nozzle getting clogged (pulling the nozzle off and soaking it in hot water solved that issue), it looked like it should be a smooth road ahead when we were ready to assemble the truck. But sometimes, there are still unexpected bumps.
When we were stacking the truck portion of the cake, we discovered it needed to stick out over the edge of the wooden structure so that the tires could be positioned correctly. The other choice would have been to mount the legs in an inch or so from the edge, but we were a little late realizing that. Expanding the truck width wouldn’t have been an issue, except for that previously mentioned gum paste. Problem was that meant the final size of the truck was larger than the hardened and painted gum paste and there was no time to make new ones. A little creative use of black fondant added some black stripes to the cab that ended up working to make it a better look for to go with our trucking company name of Queen Bee Trucking.
A late night of decorating had us almost complete with a few last details to add the next morning once the cake was safely transported.
While we may have had a few snags a long they way, there were also some unexpected bonuses. I found some leftover yellow fondant roses from the scrabble cake tucked safely away when I was pulling out some piping gel to use to add lighting detail. Since yellow roses are our manager's favourite flower, I tucked them in the bag with all the last minute bits in cases they were useful for repairing any damage during transport. They turned out to be exactly the right thing to tie in the out of service notice so that it didn't look like it had just been stuck on as an afterthought.
The other bonus... Our manager happened to wear an outfit in one of her favourite colours that was a perfect match to the color of the clothing of the fondant figure I'd made of her to drive the truck, complete with the ever-present hair bun. It just wouldn’t be her without it!
We did some creative cake cutting to keep everything looking pretty during the open house and to prove it really was all cake.
It was crazy amount of work and it definitely stretched my decorating skills pretty close to their current limit, but I learned so much, had a great time creating a cake with a friend, and the look on our manager's face when she saw what we'd created, made all the work and sleep deprivation worthwhile. On the day we presented the cake I wasn't sure I'd be able to say this, but I'd do it again ... Or better yet something just as big but different, because who wants to repeat the same creation!
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