RedHeadPress

October 24, 2006

So Many Stories, So Little Time!

It's been a busy two weeks since I last posted.

Secret Projects (2)
Well, since the issue is up and the party is over, I can safely share my super secret design projects.

Project #1 was for The AntiCraft, my friend Zabet's online crafting zine. She asked if I could do some pumpkin designs for this year's Samhain issue, and I gladly took up the challenge. The designs take quite a little time to do, and I think she was a bit dismayed by that, hence the name of the project.

I was really excited about how the designs turned out, and I hope you are too!

Peek-A-Boo

Slither

Demon Vomiting Dog

Margarita

Project #2 was also for Zabet. She commissioned me to create a cake for The AntiCraft's First Anniversary party. Requirements: must be disgusting, in a beautiful sort of way, and it must be vegan, so that everyone can share in the fun.

Then vegan part was actually pretty easy compared to creating the cake. I googled Vegan Red Velvet cake and came up with a great recipe. I not-so-secretly tested it out the week before by making it into cupcakes which I took to the Saturday S-n-B.

Creating the cake took three days of fairly intensive work.

Day 1 was baking and cooling and leveling and wrapping the four layers for the cake.

Day 2 was thinly crumb icing the layers, stacking them, carving the final shape of the cake, taking off the top layer and carving out the reservoir to hold the strawberry goo "blood", then icing the reservoir and the outside of the cake. Bug and I also made the strawberry goo mixture, and created the arteries out of white modeling chocolate, and put them in the fridge to set. Then I created the templates for the ribs and piped those out of melted white chocolate. I had a little bit of the chocolate left over, so I made a cute little horned skull and crossbones for our friend P.

Day 3 was pretty much putting it all together and painting the outside of the cake with paste food coloring and corn syrup to achieve just the right gory look to it. Bug also made some beautiful fondant eyeballs that I later painted to go around the base of the cake.

It was an amazing cake, and I'm so glad that every one liked it enough to tell me just how horrible looking it really was. :) ( frankly, I'm surprised that anyone even got past the way it looked to eat any of it... but it was really yummy!)

Here's the photos...