I promised details about Jimmy’s welding cake…

So, Jimmy loves his job. He’s a welder. Last year I made him a hamburger cake and this year I decided to go with a cake of his welding machine. A week before his birthday I asked him all about his welding machine and he kept giving me strange looks, but he realized a long time ago that I’m weird. I asked him for a picture and he sent it to me and I worked off of that.I made his cake four layers:

Layer 1: Chocolate cake
Layer 2: Chocolate cake
Layer 3: Rice crispies
Layer 4: Chocolate cake

I frosted in between the layers with chocolate frosting and then did a vanilla frosting crumb coat on the outside of the whole cake.After putting on the crumb coat I started working with the fondant. I bought a 5 pound box of white fondant and it took me about 2 hours to dye it the exact shade of blue that I wanted. I rolled and dyed and rolled and dyed until I got that bright blue!Putting the fondant on the cake was the toughest part. It kept falling apart because I had SO much cake to cover. Many disaster spots appeared…I just patched everything up as best I could because I was getting tired and Jimmy was coming over to my house in a few hours. I still had to frost the front of the cake to make the welding knobs.

I dyed vanilla frosting black and frosted the cake and then stuck Oreo’s on and piped white frosting to look like markers of whatever welding machines use them for… (pressure? speed? I don’t know?!).Then, I created the logo. I piped white frosting in a circle and cut blue fondant to make the “slash” marks for the Miller logo. Lastly, I piped “Miller” with white frosting.

Was the cake perfect? Absolutely not!
Did Jimmy like it? YES!
Was it fun? YES!!

It was such a labor of love to spend about a day and a half making a cake for someone that I love so much.

I had to let go of my “perfectionist” tendencies and realize that I know nothing about cake decorating and that Jimmy would enjoy it even if it was a total failure.

Other notes: I was exhausted after making the cake! I was honestly more tired after making this than I was after my last half marathon. I don’t know if it was from standing on my feet all day or from concentrating so hard. I really appreciate what pastry chefs do on a day-to-day basis! What a high-stress job. Also, my hands still have dye on them!

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I think that’s all the details I can remember. Let me know if you have any questions!

Hope you’re having a wonderful day 🙂