Cake Competition prep: Day 1

Hi!

I didn't get "a lot" of stuff done on my cake today, but I did.... if that makes any sense! lol

No cakes were baked, but I cleared out my kitchen, made lists, finalized the design (it's totally awesome, if I do say so myself.... nobody ever accused me of not being ambitious THAT's for sure!!) and started some of the prep work. I swear, if it were possible to get contact diabetes, I would have gone into a coma tonight!

I made:
2 batches of butter cream
1 batch modeling chocolate (I think I may need 2 or 3 batches, but I only had enough chocolate for 1)
1 batch Rice Krispie treats (I like these better than cake... it was all I could do not to eat the whole batch!! lol)
2 batches of royal icing double (Might be too runny, I might need to add more sugar... we'll have to see)
A Gelatin sheet (I'm going to have a "water" element and this is a really cool technique that I discovered on the internet)
a double batch of piping gel

I'm punking out and buying the fondant. I just don't have the time or sanity to try and make it right now. For me, fondant outcomes tend to rely more on the position of the moon and some sort of mystical chant/dance/special handshake that I am not privy to, than my actual skills. I nearly had a breakdown in September over making the stupid fondant (ANTS were in my sugar!! and you don't really notice powdered sugar ants until you have freckled fondant. At that point in time, you either chuck it, take a deep breath and have a good cry or try to convince everyone that you used fancy vanilla beans in your recipe....)

I'm really pushing my skill set with this cake. It's going to be a stacked AND tiered cake*. It will have figures modeled out of chocolate and dusted with lustre dust to look like bronze*. It will have a cool "fountain" with water.* piped royal icing decorations* Handmade flowers and ferns* and a bunch of other cool stuff, I'm not gonna tell you about right now :) You will just have to follow along if you want to see the final product!



*all stuff I have ever done