A Groom's Stump Cake
Phyllis, a member of
the Community Board who goes by tiffysma, made this gorgeous, manly cake for her cousin's wedding after the bride found the design online.
But, this was a special order. It seems
the groom is one of those rare specimens that doesn't care for chocolate, so Phyllis made his dad's favorite, the Strawberry Cake from The Cake Mix Doctor (64-65) and gave it some doctoring of her own.
She said it was cinch to make
the right shape with a 10", 9", and two 8" layers to minimize carving. As all of the board members with panitis will agree, this is a perfect example of why you can never have too many pans.
After
the shaping was achieved, Phyllis used the Strawberry Buttercream frosting (CMD, 184-85) to fill the layers and a vanilla buttercream doctored with Americolor Brown gel coloring and a little black swirled in.
When asked how to create such life-like texture, Phyllis said, "I just started using a table knife to make
the 'bark'. The 'roots' of the stump are just extra buttercream, shaped to look like roots. I used a heart cookie cutter to make the imprint of the heart and the handle end of a paint brush to outline the initials. I went over the imprint with a gold icing, with a round tip - I think it was tip 4, to give it a rustic look, like it had been carved."
With flowers that matched
the wedding cake and handcut ferns, leaves, and butterflies, the result was a very well-decorated cake. The devil can be in the details, but Phyllis didn't leave any stone unturned.
"It was a big hit at
the reception. The groom is a big hunter/outdoors man and they used a camouflage tablecloth and had a black lab figurine (like his dog), some deer and a squirrel."
"The wedding cake was pretty, but
the stump was the star. I think the guests were disappointed that it wasn't chocolate, but the groom was happy that it wasn't and it went pretty quick. This one was fun to make."
