Not what I wanted, but that'll do: Beer cake.

It was a friend's birthday on Saturday. My promised contribution was the cake. I try to do "different" cakes because, well... why not? So this one, I decided, was going to be in the shape of one of his favorite beers: Chimay. Luckily, Chimay bottles are pretty squatty, so they were easier to construct than tall bottles.

First order of business though: Getting the requested vanilla icing dyed brown. Harder than it looks.

And this began my list of issues. The icing, with all the dye, was a bit runny. Sure, I could add more powdered sugar, but that throws the balances off. SIGH. I was frustrated. It worked, but it was not my best icing day. I should have just covered the cake in vanilla and then added a thin layer of chocolate. Done. SIGH.

And then, for the individual beer bottles, I WAS AN IDIOT. I used a plastic bottle with the bottom cut out as a cookie cutter of sorts, and made a bunch of cake circles. As soon as I finished, I realized the idiot I was. Individual bottles? UNSTABLE. Crud. Why did I do that? I had thought this through and told myself that I needed SHEETS of cake with JUST the outside edges and tops scalloped like bottles. MUCH more stable. CRUD!

Not wanting to scrap the entire cake, I decided to forgo beautifulness and lean the bottles inward towards the center. This made the entire cake a bit more stable, though the straightness of the bottles was compromised.

Anyway. Cup of chocolate pudding and cake= beer. Beer bottle caps (courtesy of a friend who works in a bakery and could get me the soy/rice paper printed), and a marzipan bottle opener. I decided to put a ring on the bottom of the bottles just to make it look prettier (and less like bottles, but whatever).




I've decided that my next cake that I have to transport will only consist of piping. I like piping.

The bottlecap from the "opened" bottle, the glass, and the bottle opener.
It got a thumbs up from our friend Tyson. The bottles were leaning at this point from the journey over to Jason's house....
Each bottle also had a Chimay label, as reviewed by this slice of cake (it looked prettier before it was bonked by ice cream).

So, it could have gone better, but it wasn't too shabby. Two stupid mistakes: the food dye and the cake sculpting, but whatever. I don't do this for a living! And it still tasted good. :)