Masculine Baby Huey Cake

Hello there! That title doesn't seem to go together, but it does. I was asked to do a cake for a 65th birthday that somehow incorporated the family business and the recipient's nickname--Baby Huey. Since the family business dealt with engines, snowmobiles, motorcycles and chainsaws I knew I wanted something that looked like it could be in a garage. This one definitely made me step out of my comfort zone.

Decorator Tips

For the bottom tier, I used a diamond plate impression mat on gray modeling chocolate. The mat wasn't very big, and even though the edges lined up, there would have been a line, but that was fine. I decided to cut the chocolate into rectangles and put them on the cake as panels. Since I used modeling chocolate, it was super easy to lift the rectangle onto the side with little to no stretching. For the "screws", I pushed in an icing tip (I don't remember what size), and then used the end of one of my shaping tools for the straight line. Super easy. 

To color it, I started by airbrushing silver on. Modeling chocolate usually doesn't like liquid color on it as it just beads up, but I've found that if I use a super light coat of airbrush color it won't bead up. Then, I went over each panel with different shades of gray and brown petal dust to give it a dirty, rusty kind of look and to emphasize the panels. 

The middle tier was inspired by a masculine cake I saw online somewhere. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find it now. I loved the look of the browns, blacks and silvers brushed along the bottom, kind of looked like grease and grime. I'm not sure those two adjectives have ever been used to describe a cake before.

I don't often decorate my boards, but I really wanted to pull out some of the brown from the design so I decided to do a wood grain look. I used a tutorial from Evil Cake Genius. Guys, this is the EASIEST technique ever!! And it's kind of addicting. I wanted to wood-grain a whole cake after doing this. It's super shiny in this photo because it hadn't dried yet. I was kind of sad that most of it ended up being covered by the cake.

To get the family business on the cake I printed logos from the different brands they were associated with and a copy of their business card onto wafer paper and cutting them out. Not sure if you can read it, but this card is too funny!

Oh, I almost forgot about Baby Huey. Do you remember him? I vaguely remember him showing up in a couple of Saturday morning cartoons when I was little. Anyway, he was made with fondant mixed with a little tylose. I printed an image of him, laid that over the rolled out fondant and traced over the lines with a tiny ball tip tool. After cutting him out and letting him dry I colored him with petal dust mixed with lemon extract. Once that dried, I outlined him with black airbrush color. I like how he added a pop of color to an otherwise monochrome-ish cake.

Hope you enjoyed my masculine cake. I have a few more to share with you later.

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!!