The Cake of My Dreams

Sometimes I get this picture in my head of a cake to make, and I can't get it out of my head. Its really annoying. Just ask Big D. Anyways, my husband's alma mater makes this annual weekend retreat for all its alumni. So when we got the invitation, somehow this idea popped into my head that I should make a cake. Yes, a cake! Not just a cake, but a four tier cake! Who puts these ideas in my head?! Anyways, this idea just wouldn't leave, and it wasn't just sitting there- it was getting bigger, and clearer, with lots of details. Gold ribbons! Colors to match their website! Cut out of the school logo! Did I mention four tiers?! Once I started dreaming about this cake, I realized things were getting serious. Meanwhile, Big D is muttering in the background "Why can't you just make brownies??" Anyways, the only way to get rid of these pesky ideas is to follow through with them. And thats just what I did....

I tried to base the design of the cake on their website:

The pictures of the cake don't show the color well due to poor lighting. The actual color is more of a reddish burgundy, than a brown. I never realized that burgundy is such a difficult color to make. My mother pointed out to me afterwards that the website is maroon not burgundy, and that might have been part of the problem. I found my journey to burgundy quite humorous:
I started off with Wilton Burgundy food coloring. There must have been a label misprint, because that turned the fondant bubble gum pink. So I added lots of cocoa (I didn't have any brown food coloring, otherwise I would have used that.) Still too pink, so I added red. Getting close, but not quite. So I added black, which helped bring it to the right shade, but still too pinky, so I added some blue. I got a beautiful shade of burgundy, but I knew it just didn't match the website (it would have been clearer had I had the sense to realize the website is maroon, not burgundy- grrrrr!) So my brain did this little equation- if red+green=brown, then if something is too pinky, add green to make it more brown. And voila, it worked! 
I know its not the exact same shade, but its close enough.
 And you just got a scary sneak peak at what goes through my head while I bake.
But seriously, next time I would listen to my gut feeling, and start off with brown, and add a little red. I was planning on doing that in the first place, but got distracted by the Wilton food coloring....


Now, some points to deter myself next time a crazy idea pops into my head:

*There are 8 recipes of chocolate cake here. Like 16 cups of sugar, 16 eggs, 6 cups of cocoa etc.

*The supplies alone costed over $50. Obviously this cake was a present to the school, but I still found that mind-boggling.

* I wanted to weigh the cake and then post that the cake weighed a million pounds and then everyone would gasp and be in shock. The cake was so heavy that me and my husband had to carry it together- and Big D is super strong. So when I got on the scale together with the cake, it weighed so much that the scale just read "error." 
It was heavy, trust me on this.
* The cake took over 12 hours to bake, decorate and assemble.

Hmm...take that, you crazy idea!