My friend Terri's youngest little boy, Cameron, just turned 4. He came up to me at church and asked me to "pwease" make him a chocolate Pirates of the Caribbean cake. How could I refuse?! Anyway, I called Terri the week of the party to ask what pirate-y image he would like best - treasure chest, jolly roger, pirate ship, Jack Sparrow, treasure map, or something else - the possibilities are endless, you know. She thought he'd like Jack Sparrow or a ship.
Somehow, I got the inspiration to do a transfer of the face of Jack Sparrow. I had it all planned out, and it wasn't a difficult task. Or shouldn't have been.
First, when I baked the cake, I deliberately added a second mix of batter so that I would have one tall cake instead of baking two layers. I was trying to be efficient (read: lazy). When I took the cake out of the oven, it looked absolutely perfect. I let it cool for a few minutes before turning it out of the pan, and when I came to release it, the entire center had caved in. It truly looked like a volcano. So, I sliced off the top half and baked another regular cake layer. That set me back a few hours.
Then, I started decorating. I iced the cake with a crumb layer, and then also iced the sides of the cake in white. Then I colored the icing for the top of the cake a parchment-y tan color. I had found an awesome pumpkin-carving stencil of Jack Sparrow's face online.
- So, I tried it in black piping gel as a transfer. No luck. Had to scrape it off and re-ice the cake.
- Then I tried it with black icing. Still nothing. Not enough of the icing would "stick" to the cake icing. Scrape it again and repair the icing.
- Tried poking the stencil with a toothpick to play connect-the-dots. But when I removed the stencil, I couldn't tell which dots went together. Roll the icing smooth again.
- Tried again with black piping gel, but only outlined the shapes. Still not working, and it's 2 a.m.
- Decided the design was too detailed for caking. Printed out another stencil of a pirate ship.
- Went to bed and prayed that it would work in the morning, and I'd have enough time to get it all done.