Now that I've had some rest, here's more giddy goodness from the cake show...

I already posted about how Mike McCarey, the GOD OF CAKES, was complimenting my work and making me squeeful on Saturday. Well, on the Sunday morning, I went to the demo with him and two other celebrity instructors (and thank you a zillion times to noiseinmyhead for covering the kiddie table for me so I could do that).

The first two (Lauren Kitchens and Kathy Scott) were very fun and interesting and had lots of useful things to share, but even Lauren was distracted by the presence of THE GOD OF CAKES. She's competed against him on Food Network, after all, which has to be scary.

There were a few times during those demos that I thought, "Oh yeah, I know how to do that." Like when Lauren showed a cake that looked like a floating bottle of maple syrup being poured on a waffle and most of the people around me were astounded, and I was thinking, "Hey, I made that kind of trick sculpture when I was a pre-teen." Here's the trick (and if I could figure it out as a kid, anyone can do it): you build up a support inside whatever appears to be pouring/dripping/dropping down and feed it up into the apparent source, and anchor the bottom in whatever's being poured/dripped/dropped on. In my case, I made it look like someone had been eating spaghetti and walked away with the fork still in the air. I took a coat hanger and staple-gunned it to a tin pie plate on a wood board, with a long piece bent so it was standing straight up but pinched into a tight loop. Then I used plasticine to roll out spaghetti noodles and brown meatballs, and filled the plate. Then I wound some of the fake spaghetti up the wire to cover it, and then jammed an old scrap fork into the wire. I drizzled the whole thing with watered-down red acrylic paint, sprayed on some varnish, and everyone was insanely impressed.

So I was sitting there contemplating doing a demo of my own of this technique for the cake club someday (although with cake instead of plasticine).

Eventually it was Mike's turn, and he taught about modelling chocolate, including the basic recipe and how to tweak it depending on what kind of chocolate you use. He talked a lot about what it can and can't do, and did a fab job of showing exactly why some things work and some don't. A lot of what he said came down to the basic physics of the medium, which were readily apparent as he demonstrated, so my brain was already contemplating ways that I might try to use it while he was explaining the physics to those who aren't as familiar with such things (and to be clear, I'm not at all familiar with modelling chocolate but it appears to have a lot of properties in common with polymer clay, so I was thinking about that).

Then Mike said something about how it can be used for caning, just as I was thinking that myself. Then he looked right at me and said, "But there's someone here who knows more about caning then I do."

And like an idiot, I nodded. My show cake had lots of caning on it, and I only started doing it with that cake, so I'm hardly an expert. In fact, my canes SUCKED and didn't look anything like what I wanted.

But then Mike said, "So, you want to tell them about it?"

MEEP.

Hah. Serves me right for having been sitting there earlier thinking, "Hey, I should teach some of this stuff I know to the club!" And in fact I had already planned to demo the caning technique to the club at the March meeting, but that's a group of people I know, not THE GOD OF CAKES asking *me* to talk about it during *his* class!

So I said some stuff about caning. I don't know what I said, because all that was in my head at the time was an echoing fangirl shriek of semi-squeefullness, semi-terror. I can only hope that I didn't stammer too badly or sound too lame.

I know I mentioned something about using polymer clay tools like the sharp, thin blade made for cutting canes, because then Mike took back the attention (phew!) and said that he uses a lot of tools from the polymer clay section of the craft store.

At the end of the class, one of the other club members who had been urging me to get a pic with Mike dragged me to him and made me do it, so when she sends me a copy I'll share. But I felt so silly doing it. I had told the others previously that what I really wanted was a pic of him looking at my cake (she got one of those too at some point, so that's awesome...not sure if she put him up to it or it was natural). And the whole time, he kept saying nice stuff about my cake at the end of the class and my brain was leaking out of my ears like so much gooey icing.

Later that day, after I'd squeed about this to noiseinmyhead and the other kiddie table volunteers, at one point I turned around because I'd noticed someone behind me and assumed it was another kid and it was HIM, the GOD OF CAKES. Again, brain goes splutttttttt. Luckily, noiseinmyhead was there to chat about how he'd made her wedding cake, so I went and served some more cupcakes to kiddies; it was no easy task remembering which kind they'd ordered with the GOD OF CAKES sitting right there.

So then I talked to him some more, and I have no idea what it was about other than more about caning and chocolate and my brain going, "SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Then he came by again a short time later to show me the results of some experimentation he and some others had done with the Cricut machine, which is made for scrapbooking but has been adopted by the cake industry because you can get it to pre-cut gumpaste, fondant, etc. in elaborate swirls, letters, or whatever you want. Mike came by to show me that it works with modelling chocolate.

He asked me if I had a Cricut and I said I couldn't cost-justify it, and he gave me a funny look. I said, "You do realize I'm a total amateur, right? I don't have a business. I'm a stay-at-home mom." He said something about how I should start a business and I glibly said, "Hey, if you open a branch here, I'll apply!"

He said, "You're hired!"

*squeeee*

Over several conversations, I got the message loud and clear that he wants me to do something with modelling chocolate and possibly caning for next year's show.

You know...the show I was planning to possibly skip on account of trying to get pregnant again and all that.

But if the GOD OF CAKES gives you homework, you bloody well do it!

So now in my delirium I'm pondering making an impossibly huge, real-cake sphere covered with millefiori canework like a giant polymer clay bead. Let's say, oh, 6 or 7 foot diameter. Imagine that sitting on a show table. Muahahahaa...that'd show the GOD!

Okay, it's not even possible, but I'm going to spend the next few weeks dreaming about it and hey, maybe something more realistic will come out of it. I also came up with another potential idea that, if it works (and it may not), could be awesome and ought to impress the GOD. Not necessarily a show cake idea, though. We'll see.

Summed up: talked to a deity, failed my saving throw, my brain got fried, I remain delusional. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!



PS I'm also still exhausted and not going to proofread this post, so forgive any rambling or errors, please!