Emily the Strange

Emily's guitar

Making cakes for Emily is always fun.  I get to delve into mysterious worlds and learn new things. For instance, I knew nothing about Emily the Strange before making this cake.  A 13-year-old girl who walks to the beat of her own drum – well, guitar actually, Emily the Strange is a counterculture figure with a sharp wit and a gang of four black cats.  She hates pink and insists on being herself, thinking for herself, and doing it herself. 

creating this dark,
fantastic look was a fun
change from the
usual pretty cakes

I explored a bunch of websites and created some decorations for the sides of the cake based on Emily the Strange’s art. Black and white with a bit of red was obviously the way to go with colors.  Emily and her family ordered the cake to celebrate her graduation, so I gave Emily the Strange a graduation cap and showed her studying her two favorite subjects, math and science. 

a side view

 

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For a recent birthday, Emily attended the Snow Ball in Michigan and met author Heather Brewer (of The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod series).  The border around the cake was based on the header of Heather Brewer’s website.  The cemetery scene looks simple, but it took FOREVER!  Only after spending hours twisting my hand, head, arm, and entire body all over my kitchen counter to cut black fondant, did I learn about X-acto knives with pivoting heads.  Oh well, I’ll know that for next time. 

Also, I don’t have an airbrush (one day), so I used spray cans of pink, blue, and purple food coloring to tint the frosted cake.  To avoid spraying my entire kitchen (I hate cleaning), I put the cake on a lazy Susan and placed it inside a new cardboard box with one side cut off.  I sprayed and spun the cake and only the inside of the box was a mess.

On the cover of all the books, Vladimir, the half-human, half-vampire, always wears a fanged smiley face tee, so I made a few to dangle from wires on the cake.