Last week I had the honor of making a gravity-defying canvas cake for Catalina’s Bat Mitzvah. Oh Yes!! A REAL CAKE that is a painting and stands on its own.  I was so excited to make this cake and I couldn’t believe how quickly the time came to finally create the cake.  See the plan to create this cake was in the works from last summer.  This cake was a true test of my ability to paint by the numbers (HA).  Not that I didn’t trust that I could, It was a bit bigger than the norm.

Of course, with any carved/gravity-defying cake I make there were so many questions from the customer.  Some of the questions for this cake were: how will it stand, how to display the cake and most importantly what will prevent the cake from falling off. With many assurances that the cake will stand and will not fall out, we (my customer and I) began planning. She is such a planner and every single detail of the Bat Mitzvah was meticulously planned. 

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Planning the Painted Canvas Cake

Choosing a Cake to Match the Theme

The first part of planning is choosing a cake to go with the art theme. That’s when the light bulb went off, why not make a painting as a cake?  It was only fitting since the entire room was going to be filled with artwork (including Catalina’s).   My customer settled on an amazing artist Martina Shapiro’s. Ms. Shapiro’s work includes much Jewish Art one of which was a Bat Mitzvah girl reading from the Torah. Ms. Shapiro gave us permission to make it into a cake.  Even though I am not sure if Ms. Shapiro thought I was going to try to recreate her work (I was totally biting my finger at this).

Creating the Cake Structure

The second part of planning is creating the cake structure. The cake structure needed to be sturdy enough to hold up the weight of the cake (see more tips here). The size of the painting I mean cake was exactly 18 x 20 x 2.  The entire structure was made from MDF wood that was covered with foil to be food safe. My amazing carpenter came to my rescue on this one, because for some reason the associate at Lowes kept getting the cuts too short.  I was so grateful when I saw the final structure all put together.  

The cake was going to rest on an easel, therefore I need to make sure I planned for that as well. 

Calculate how much Materials are Needed

A third of planning is to determine how much cake to bake. This part of the planning process usually done at the same time as the cake structure.  It is super important to figure out in advance how much cake batter to make, how much buttercream (if any at all), how much ganache and how much fondant. 

I used two times the batter of my chocolate cake recipe and one batter of my vanilla cake recipe.  In addition, I used a combination of my marshmallow fondant with Wilton vanilla fondant to cover the cake.

Painting the Canvas Cake

The fourth and final part of planning is making the painting itself. I printed a clean version of the painting and had it blown up to 18 x 20. The picture was flipped to get the mirror image. Prior, to the actual cake, I painted a smaller version to test frame designs.

I used the techniques in this tutorial (how to paint on fondant) to paint the cake. I also used Edible Art edible paint and some gel color paint such as brown, purple and royal blue.  The Edible Art edible paints are so phenomenal, no mixing required and they dry very quickly.

Of course, as much as I planned, at the last minute, I realized I didn’t make allowances for the frame at the top and bottom of the painting oops.  It turned out to be ok, only a few areas were covered.  Some progress photos below of the masterpiece.

A beginning sketch of the cake.  It doesn’t look like much at this point but it eventually gets there.

A little more filled in… getting there.  A lot of the darker lines were eventually changed to a lighter blue. 

The painted canvas cake up close.

An up-close view of the frame. My customer wanted a simple frame with a small design in the corners and painted in silver.

Finally, the cake was delivered and placed on the dance floor on display. 

That’s it for this cake, don’t forget to share the love and pin for later.  Until next time happy caking.