Reunion Sheet Cake!

Well folks this cake wraps it up; wraps up the Cake for Every Pan challenge, that is.  Last week I worked on this three-layer half-sheet cake for my parents.  They had a reunion with about 25 of their buddies from the "good ol' days" (read: the '70's!) when they all worked together at Moe Black's hardware store in Waltham, MA.  

Mom gave very little direction on the cake flavors, she wanted it to taste good and for me to do "whatever's easiest."  Dad said he wanted the filling to have a "wow factor."  Easy yet wowwing.... I opted to go with three layers of french vanilla cake, filled with strawberry cream and frosted with almond buttercream.  Apparently a few people wanted the recipe for the strawberry cream filling, sorry guys, that one is a BostonSweetie secret!

The cake decoration was a bit more important to my mom.  She really wanted the store's logo on the cake, and all she had for me to go off of was a small, faded picture, scanned into Facebook and then printed on an old ink jet printer since I couldn't see the picture from my account.  I was having mini panic attacks about that part, as my artistry can sometimes be questionable, but it all worked out in the end.

I figured out a great method to get this done and make it look good!  Lucky for me, the font in the logo was almost identical to the font "Impact."  I typed out the logo in a size that would be appropriate for the cake, and then printed it out on regular old computer paper.  Next, I rolled out some white fondant, placed the printed sheet on top of the fondant, and traced around the letters with a ballpoint pen.  I had to be careful to not pierce the paper and yet still press hard enough to leave an impression on the fondant.  Once the tracing was done, I used edible Wilton markers to color the logo yellow and black.  These things are pretty cool, I bought a pack of bold-tip primary colors.  These are easy to use and very helpful for people like me who's drawing ability doesn't go past the crayons and markers of elementary school! Note...the result of these do look a lot like those crayons/markers of your youth.  You can see "lines," so color evenly!!  I bought mine at Michael's, but you can buy them online at Wilton.com too.

So cake and filling, check.  Logo, check.  I added a textured top to the cake, some yellow buttercream piping and a few 70's inspired fondant flowers, and bam, the end result was pretty great!  Mom and dad loved the cake, and the party was a hit.  Sheet cake?  Great success!

* NOTE:  Wilton did NOT ask me to write about their edible markers; I tried them out for this project and liked how they worked so have decided to include them on my blog on my own accord.  I purchased these for myself and recommend them for anyone looking to achieve that "colored" look.