Over the next week or so, I have three cakes to share with you that I almost missed out on sharing. I'm not sure how it happened, but the file with all of these cakes was moved to my "Posted" folder - except I hadn't ever posted them. This Corn Farming Tractor Cake is the first of the three.
It was only by accident that I even found these pics and realized I never shared them. Someone asked me a question about a tractor cake and I was going to refer them to the pics of this cake... and that's when I realized I had never shared the pics.
And when I opened the file that had the pics... there were three cakes that haven't ever been posted on my blog or Facebook page.
But you guys don't care about any of this stuff huh? I'm just rambling because that's what I do... ramble. 🙂
Anywho... so here are the details for you. This was a groom's cake - and the groom was a corn farmer! He requested a cake with a corn field and lots of corn stalks.
This was a big groom's cake. And I mean big. I baked four 11"x15" cakes, then stacked them and pushed them together to have a cake that ended up being a 15"x22" rectangle and 4" tall. It had around 150 servings!
Beyond the size of the cake, the tractor and corn were also challenging. The groom asked that the tractor not be child-like if possible, so I wanted it to be less toy-ish than this red tractor I made as a cake topper before. He also wanted it to have John Deere colors, which was not a problem!
Okay - now here's where it gets tricky. I don't remember how I made the tractor. I know, I know, that's not very helpful. I'll tell you what I remember (this was from May 2013), but some of it will be guess-work.
I know that the small tires were made with tire molds I purchased from Mayen on Etsy (love her, love her molds, and really, really love her cakes!!).
And I know my husband made the big tires by cutting out circles of black fondant mixed with tylose and then individually cutting each little ridge to glue on them to get the tread. He also added the yellow centers to all of them for me... he's a doll like that!
My husband also built me a platform to hold the tractor that included posts equal to the depth of the cake (I knew the weight of it would sink into a buttercream cake). Other than the Satin Ice Black fondant - all of the other fondant was homemade marshmallow fondant (white, yellow, and green) mixed with Tylose.
Now - here's where I have to guess. I *think* the inside of the tractor cab was rice cereal treats. But it might have been cake. I just don't remember. I'm pretty sure it wasn't solid fondant - that would've been incredibly heavy. I do think the engine (front) part of the tractor was all fondant... but again, I'm not 100% certain. My hubby thinks we used rice cereal treats for that too...
Seeing that I don't remember what I made the tractor from - I certainly don't remember how I assembled it, so that's all I've got for you on it!
For the stalks of corn, I mixed lots of tylose into green homemade marshmallow fondant then I rolled out ropes of it and pushed bamboo skewers into them. I let them dry overnight, then added the corn and leaves for details.
And the rest of it... it was easy. The inside was chocolate cake and I covered the whole thing in green vanilla buttercream. Then I mixed up a small batch of chocolate buttercream and made the field with that.
Rebecca asked that I put their names and wedding date on the cake, so I used the Wilton Silicone Letters mold to do that with Satin Ice Dark Chocolate Brown fondant.
Do you want to see my other tractor cakes? I have lots...
- Farming Tractor Cake
- Farm Animals Cake with a Green Tractor
And that's it... do you have any questions about this Corn Farming Tractor Cake? If so, just leave a comment and I'll answer and help out if I can!
Omotayo
Hi Rose, love ALL your cakes. Hope this isn't a silly question, I stored leftover gumpaste in the freezer in an airtight container (or so I thought), when I opened it, I found ice around it. Can it still be used if brought to room temperature or what can I do to salvage it? Thanks
Rose
Honeslty, I've never frozen gum paste. I would recommend trial and error. Let it come to room temperature, then knead it and see how it feels. If it feels "normal", maybe do a practice run with a small piece and see if it will dry/harden as it should. If so, great! If not, trash it.