Bake With Me: A Dr. Mario cake for my husband’s 30th! PART 2

So, after the last entry I continued to build up my Mario. I added a modeling chocolate arm and pill, in addition to covering the face in a thin layer of fondant.

It’s’a me, your ultimate nightmare!

Next, the cake looked like this.

“Wait a minute, Katharina,” you say. “Mario JUST had an arm and a terrifying fondant face.”

You are correct. Let me share with you the tale of my sorrow.

After the the second to last photo, I experienced the worst cake disaster I’ve been through in half a decade. This isn’t hyperbole; I remember the specific disaster from 2011 I’m referring to. (In case anyone’s wondering, I dropped a 200-serving wedding cake and smashed it into a fridge.)

This particular disaster wasn’t actually due to an error of mine, outside of the fact that I should have foreseen it. No, it was the fault of the supports I was trying out… which, by the way, I would no longer say I’m merely unimpressed by. My feelings on the matter have become stronger.

Here’s what happened: I finished the face of my Mario, in addition to sculpting hands. I was chatting with my husband while I sculpted Mario’s hair, and all at once the entire torso of my cake collapsed. The pipes I had thought were the most sturdy portion of the structure had basically just bent over and come undone squarely at the core of my cake. It essentially ripped the whole thing in half. I was barely able to salvage it at all. In a span of 5 minutes, I went from a perfectly good cake to the pastry equivalent of a heap of rubble.

Basically, this structure did a terrible job of separating the weight of the cake the way it was meant to. The plastic was simply too cheap to hold up to the job. What cake parts I managed to save, I stacked the usual way: with cardboard and bubble tea straws. It was 10 times sturdier than the structure I paid $70 for, so that’s pretty infuriating. I’m actually proud I didn’t hit the Kahlua myself at this point.

With only about 16 hours before the party, I pondered an alternate design I could make with what I had left. It wouldn’t be gravity defying… but darn it, it would still be cool lookin’.

You’ll have to forgive me, because the next photo is a major leap. I had no choice but to completely haul ass on this thing, because I had lots of non-cake things I also needed to get done pre-party.

Mario got moved to a nice glass cake plate. The face was covered in fondant, again. The face and headband were actually the only fondant elements here. The hair, coat, eyes, etc. were all made with modeling chocolate.

Since the good Doctor wouldn’t have legs, I decided to make some little modeling chocolate viruses and pills to make the cake more interesting.

These were super fun to make. I wish I had had time to make more than one of each, but I was seriously pushing my luck in adding them at all.

Here he is all finished up!

I honestly can’t claim that the cake came out the way I wanted, especially considering his lack of legs. BecauseI was in such a rush that my work wasn’t as clean as usual, which bugged me as a decorator (but probably wasn’t as obvious to the guests). To top things off, the whole stucture was precarious because the cake had been torn in half and jigsawed back together. That gave me fun problems like his ear trying to fall off, for example. All in all, though, I’m proud of what I did with a bad situation Most importantly, my husband loved it! He seemed extra proud since he saw the whole thing collapse and knew what I was working with. Next year I’ll make sure his cake involves no such drama.

Most importantly, the guests still enjoyed the cake! I did not regret using the amount of Kahlua I did, that’s for sure. Even if it was a little smushed, it still had good flavor.

Here’s to my next Bake With Me being less of an adventure.