Clever Cake Studio

This was inspired by Penny Arcade’s game. I had a whole weekend for this, unlike the usual few weeknights I had for the other cakes. So I had a lot of fun really going all-out in details and shiny paint. It’s the most complex and labor-intensive cake I’ve done so far.

To start: the cake itself is vanilla, with dark chocolate between layers. It’s covered in fondant made to look like wood planks, and it was fun doing the wood texture and trying to mimic natural flaws. the dome is also cake covered in fondant. All the details - the gauges, the Instruction Panel (which is, of course, too old and blurry to read anymore, except for a couple faint words and May 21, 2008 sorta decipherable at the bottom, which is the launch date of the game), the control pad, the pipes… all fondant. The antenna is a stick wrapped in fondant. The gears are gumpaste, made a couple days earlier so they’d harden.

The original sketch was slightly different, but some improvisation was necessary, as the place we intended to have the dome didn’t have much interest in supporting it. So, redesign! I actually like the new design better, it feels more balanced and solid.

Also, new technologies! My husband surprised me with a new professional-grade uber-stand mixer, bringing me joy and delight. For the past few cakes, I’ve been doing it all by hand, because the little hand mixer I had died after a couple cakes. Much love, much joy. It’s wonderful.

This final photo was taken on site by someone with a much, much better camera than me. They added a figurine of the Fruit ‘Friend’, which seems to take it to a whole new level.