Chevron Seven Locked

It was LDS's birthday last week. Her partner, who I will call Bonnie, decided to throw a surprise party for her. I had two important tasks: 1 - keep LDS occupied on Saturday morning while Bonnie decorates and cooks and 2 - make the cake.

The first task was easy. LDS and I have been trying to plan a big Guild Wars gaming day for a couple months. We would make plans and cancel them for various reasons. Bonnie and I told her it was going to be Saturday and she was not allowed to back out. Easy.

Since we were talking about the Stargate cake, as seen on this post at CakeWrecks I decided it would be the perfect time to make the Stargate cake.

I decided to make a fondant topper so that I could have the gate part made days in advance and didn't ruin the whole cake if my sculpting skills proved to be inadequate. I just used Wilton's ready-made fondant, because it's easier. Few people actually eat the fondant anyway. I cut a paper template measuring with the bottom of my cake pan, rolled out some white fondant, and cut a circle.

Next I used black gel coloring to get a gray color out of a ball of fondant and rolled and shaped and rolled to get the outer ring. I placed that a little inside the edges of my white base and textured it with a shell tool.

Carving Glyphs

I used black and blue gel coloring to get a bluish gray for the glyph ring. I mapped out and carved 39 mostly equal little squares for the glyphs and used an image from the Wikipedia page for reference to carve the glyphs. I then added another ring of the first gray color and added some texture.

Finished Gate

The chevrons were made with the same bluish gray and then the whole thing was dusted with silver pearl dust to make it look more metallic. Then the whole thing went in a Ziploc bag and waited. I want the cake to be as fresh as possible and not sit forever holding the heavy fondant top.

Dirty Iced Cake

I made the cake on Thursday. It was a simple box chocolate mix, no bells and whistles there. I then layered and iced my cake with a white buttercream. You can see some crumbs in there. I was sure my choice of color would cover them up, so I wasn't worried about that.

Spray Color Fail

I wanted to use a silver/gray spray Duff brand icing color. I got about five seconds of spray, maybe 1/4 of the side of my cake, before the crappy product gave up the ghost. PANIC!! I was counting on this silver color, and it was exactly the silver color I wanted! It was 2130! There was no Micheal's that I could get to (assuming they close at 2200, and it may be earlier) for more spray! Bonnie was picking up the cake Friday morning! It HAD to be done! I hit the Internet to see if anyone had any tips for unclogging this particular brand of spray color, as I tried hot water and pins and everything I could think of and nothing worked. I found a cake decorating forum where a whole bunch of people indicated that the silver color in particular consistently didn't work. Someone even mentioned that the company knew it was a faulty product and would hopefully fix it with the next production run. Pull your bad product off the shelves, morons! I want to like Duff brand, I really do, but creating a cake crisis like this has me telling everyone not to waste their time (and possibly cost their business) with any of it. You hear that, Duff brand? I'm telling people not to buy your crap! You left me in a hellova pinch and I will never give you another opportunity to do it again. I may not be a professional, but someone ordered this cake from me and expected it done. You fail. And yes, I returned that can to the store on Friday.

It Looks Like Snot

I had bought two cans of Wilton's decorator icing to use for this project and another one. I was almost certain I didn't have enough icing to cover my cake, when I was counting on that spray. I had to try, though, because there was no alternative. I added some black gel color and mixed it up. It looked just like snot.

Iced Cake

It turned into almost the exact shade of gray that I used for part of the gate! And there was exactly enough to cover the cake! Wilton's to the rescue!

Painting the Event Horizon

While the icing was resting and stiffening up, I worked on the event horizon on the gate. Using blue gel color and a bit of vodka, I painted blue on the white fondant field inside the Stargate ring and left the very center white.

Painted Event Horizon

If you watch the show or look at pictures, you can see the pool of the wormhole has this gradual color effect going on. I wasn’t sure about painting the blue detail at first, having never worked with piping gel that would be the pool of the wormhole. But, I figured if it didn't work, the piping gel might cover it.

Topper in Place

The next step was to put my topper on top. It fit perfectly, and I had enough icing to cover the edges of the white fondant base.

Gel Event Horizon

It's time for the final details! I mixed a bit of blue with the clear piping gel and slathered that in the middle of the gate, poking with a ball tool for texture. The painted color underneath created just the effect I was going for. I then mixed up some red piping gel and used that to color the lights on the chevrons and used the rest of that as a boarder on the bottom.

The Completed Stargate Cake

Ta-da! My completed Stargate cake! Everyone said it was amazing and delicious. It hope so, I worked hard on that thing! Constructing the Stargate alone took about three hours (mostly from carving all those glyphs). And the cake color problem added a couple hours of headache that I didn't need. LDS ended up cutting it because I couldn't bring myself to do it. All that work, and then they ate it! But at least I know it was appreciated and enjoyed.

And LDS had no clue Bonnie and I had been planning her surprise party for a month. Jack and I even managed to beat her there so we could warn everyone her arrival was imminent. It was a great party!

Happy Birthday, LDS!