I was terribly afraid that this sailboat cake would end up looking like, well, anything but a sailboat. Carving a cake can be a little tricky. Getting the shape right is more than half of the battle.
As I stood before the stack of four filled sheet cakes, I hemmed and hawed quite a bit. At one point I remember thinking, “Just cut the freaking cake!” But, I couldn’t bring myself to do it…
So, I drew a template of the boat’s shape onto a piece of paper. To make sure the boat was symmetrical, I folded the paper in half, lengthwise. Then, I cut out the template.
Next, I placed the paper template onto the cake. Then, I used a long, sharp, serrated knife to cut the cake, using the template as a guide.
Here’s how the cake looked after I carved the initial shape using the paper template. Then, I used a smaller sharp, serrated knife to tweak the shape a bit.
Before I covered the cake with rolled fondant, I covered it with a thin crumb coat of buttercream. After I covered the cake with fondant, I added some decorative touches like the cabin on top and the gumpaste sail. Then, I added a few fondant waves on the side of the boat, and I finished off the cake board with the “water” (presumably, Lake Michigan) using tinted royal icing.
I wish I would have taken a picture of my friend’s face when I presented her with this sailboat cake. (Sheer delight.) What made it even better was that, as soon as she saw the cake, she knew that it was a sailboat. Whew!
