I am a home/hobby baker and created a few party cakes for my son’s kindergarten class. Every year the local weather man comes to each school in the area to talk to the kindergarten children and the school usually gives him a little cake as a thank you. Over the past 35 years it has turned into a bit of a cake competition to see which school can give him his favorite cake as he will post them on his twitter and facebook pages.
When my son’s teacher asked me to create the cake I was super excited. My boys helped me with the design, of course. You would have to know the love that everyone in this area has for our wonderful weatherman. A couple years ago several tornadoes ripped through the area destroying entire subdivisions, a beautiful college campus, an entire town, and taking many lives. Mr. J.S. was there every step of the way reporting and warning families of the dangers and encouraging everyone to take precautions. Lives were lost, but many more would have been lost if he and his team had not sacrificed time and sleep to stay on the air through the entire event keeping us educated and aware of where the storms were headed.
This cake was my big thank you to him! Within ten minutes of his posting it on his facebook page and tagging me, I had over 500 emails. Most of them were to praise him for his amazing job (well done) and not the cake, but it was still such an amazing experience for me. He even showed pictures of the cake during his segment on the news that night. The cake picture on his facebook page eventually got over 6,200 likes with him posting “Could be the greatest cake in over 34 years on Birmingham TV”. It really was my 15 minutes of fame!!!!
To create the house part of the cake I simply baked and stacked about six layers of 12 inch square cake, placing supports and a cake board every two layers to keep the weight from squashing all the buttercream out from between the layers of cake. I then carved the roof. I placed the shingles and siding just as it would be done on a real house…one at a time…lol.
The tornado is many round cakes carved into the shape. I was a little disappointed with the proportions of the tornado, but without any secured supports I was afraid it would fall over if I made the bottom any smaller. The little J.S. figure is clearly a super hero stopping the horrible storm from destroying the family home. It was created completely of marshmallow fondant.
To me this cake is meant to honor its recipient. That is exactly how I designed this one. Although it has been my most popular cake EVER, the “likes” were more for the love and support of the recipient and not the cake itself. That is a true success!!!
