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Saturday, January 14, 2012

Pocket Knife Cake

So, one of our friends just had a birthday yesterday.  I work with his girlfriend, and she expressed to me how special she wanted this birthday to be, because he's turning 30.  She had an idea for a cake, and I ran with it. You see, the birthday man is a knife (and outdoor) enthusiast.  In fact, he gave Rocket Scientist a very nice pocket knife for Christmas.  So, it's very fitting that my friend wanted the cake to look like a knife.  

Once I got home I started thinking about how it was going to come together and I decided that fondant was the best way to go for the deep colors I wanted.  But having never used fondant before (and never liking the taste) I was a little hesitant.  Then I remembered a previous convo I'd had with my friend at work about marshmallow fondant, which was easy and yummy to make.  So that's what I went with....  Here's how the rest of it all came together! :) 


Design:  My rendition of a Kershaw pocket knife
Cake:  Best Ever Chocolate Cake by Better Homes and Gardens
Chocolate Frosting:  My Chocolate Frosting
Fondant:  Marshmallow Fondant

 I grabbed Rocket Scientist's new knife and sketched it larger on paper and cut it out.  Then I baked a homemade chocolate cake, let it cool completely and traced the cut out.  Then I carefully cut the shape out of the cake and removed the other pieces.  I transferred the knife cake to a sterile piece of cake-board to start decorating.
 Then since you need to frost cakes with a least a thing layer of frosting before place fondant on top, I just whipped up some yummy chocolate frosting of my own.  (See recipe here.)  I should have followed my mother's advice of always doing a crumb coat...but I didn't.  :(  So my layer of frosting was a little...well....crumby...It's all good though because it got covered by fondant anyway though.
 I whipped up a batch of fondant and then split it in two for coloring.  I did gray for the blade and red for the handle.  (Then I also took some later to make black for more details...)  BTW I think this tastes WAY better than regular fondant.
 I rolled out a section of the gray fondant (about 1/8" thick) and draped it on top of the blade portion of the cake.  Then I trimmed to fit.  I repeated with the red handle portion, and added details.  And instead of the brand name of the knife I put the Birthday man's name.  :)
 Then I finished it all off by making rolls of each color and placing then around the bottom of the cake to make it look "finished".  I really like the way it turned out.  (especially for my first attempt at a shaped cake and using fondant!)
I place the cake-board in the cake box that I also got from Michael's and it was ready to go to the Birthday celebration.  Where it was a big hit!  :)


16 comments:

  1. That's a really cute cake design! Perfect for celebrating outdoorsman events. I'm not really sure about recommending this to a children's party though.

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    1. Well thank you for the compliment. And I didn't think it would be appropriate for a children's event either, so that's why I didn't say that. Thanks.

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  2. This is a cute design though I don't think I would let my kids eat such cake. They might like it much and it the real knives! kershaw knives

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  3. I love knives so much, I use them for hunting. I wish I could have this for my birthday but I guess I'm too old for such case. Nice job baking it. gerber hunting knives

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  4. I thought the smaller one is a cake too. You did a great job on copying the design. I hope this is not too sharp for my mouth. cold steel tomahawk

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  5. This is awesome! I have a friend who asked me last night to make a knife cake for her hubby's 40th that is coming up in February, so I came across this while looking for inspiration on the web. You did a really great job! I too just started working with fondant a few months ago and prefer the marshmallow fondant over the other yucky stuff. Wish me luck! ;)

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  6. Nice Blog ! Thanks for such a informative post.

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  9. You don't need the blade cutting edge snapping fifty-fifty or popping directly off the handles as a result of some minor sidelong weight if the edge stalls out in some wood or other issue. pipe da tabacco

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  11. I haven’t checked in here for a while as I thought it was getting boring, but the last several posts are good quality so I guess I will add you back to my daily bloglist. You deserve it my friend best folding hunting knife

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