Title: I Love Your Work Cake
Fandom: Hannibal
Rating: T
Length: two tiers :V
Bakers: elanya, longpig, and contributions from gats
Notes: Inspired by the Hannibal episode "Sakizuki". I saw the challenge and knew that it was the perfect time to get my awesome and talented and Giant Raging Fannibal sister to help me make something perfect - a hannibal Cake! This was a multi-day process, and it was served yesterday when we had people come over for a belated birthday party for her, so really that was our deadline to finish. We were up until 2am on Friday decorating! Details below the cut :)



This is the cake recipe we used: Buddy Valastro's Chocolate Cake - we needed something we knew would hold up to stacking, so we went for the Cake Boss recipe.

I baked the bottom tier on Tuesday, before I had to run off to catch a train. It rose really weirdly! The top tier, and an extra layer for the bottom, got baked on Thursday. They also rose weirdly, but not quite so badly. So, the first stage was leveling the cakes. We did the top tier first, as the bottom had been in the freezer and wasn't quite thaw. I took most of the process pictures, so it looks like longpig did all the work, but I promise she didn't! That said, she did most of the tricksy bits as she has way more practice with fondant.


Leveling the top tier

After it was leveled, it had to be garroted into layers - we didn't have enough conveniently sized pans to do it the easy way, but tbh it was fun! I got to level and garrote the bottom tier once it was unfrozen.



Cake garrote! You can see the top part that was cut off. Don't worry, we didn't let it go to waste ^-^

The next stage was to put on the icing what would provide a base for the fondant and, uh, actually taste good. We did a basic buttercream (butter, icing sugar, milk, vanilla), and decided not to colour it since a: it wouldn't be visible b: adding enough colour to make it look dark would make it taste visible and c: we're actually lazy. We thought about flavouring it almond but one of the people we were expecting for the party had a nut allergy, so no go on that! I made the icing and Longpig did that actual application with her fancy cake decorating bits!


Icing the first layer.


Smoothing out the icing with fancy cake tools. You can also see the bits of the cake discard from the bottom layer and its layers waiting in the back

The next stage was rolling out the fondant - that was my job, and of course Longpig did the actual application.


Me rolling out fondant.

We are sisters and share a hive mind, so our ideas for the cake were pretty much in synch the whole way through. The top tier (which we covered first) was covered in black, and the bottom in dark red. We got the top tier covered on Friday afternoon before my sister had to go pick up her oldest from school, and got the bottom tier leveled and split and that was it until the evening.


Black-fondant covered top tier (2 layers), with the bottom tier (3 layers) waiting attention and a shiny clean kitchen-aid waiting to go!

Out of town people had started arriving for the party the next day, so we got a little distracted and didn't get back to it until the evening. We had to move the bottom tier off the cake turntable and messed up the fondant a bit, alas! So we got a little more clever with the bottom tier and put it on some wax paper so it would be easier to maneuver. However, we also ran into a problem when we ran out of icing, and didn't have enough sugar to make a new batch! Longpig had to run out to the store so that we would have enough.


Whoops -_-

We got that sorted though, and then it was time for me to roll out and tint the red fondant. We didn't want it to be fire-engine red, so (with expert direction) I added some black food colouring to the bit I rolled out. Again - I swear I helped, Longpig was just less obsessive about taking pictures ;) And the she did the cake covering, which I managed to get decent shots of this time. The flash makes the fondant look more brown, but it really wasn't!


Covering.


Trimming.


Smoothing.

After that we had to put the cakes together! This required dowels, which I cut to size. By now we had been joined by our friend gats, who is actually a professional baker, and he helped us out from here on out with various things, like helping me hold the bloody dowels so I could saw them straight :p Longpig measured the board to center the cakes, and also measured the tiers so we could place them properly, and did the actual moving of the cakes.


Bottom and dowels ready for the top.


Pressing the top into place.

Once they were in place, it was time to start the fun by finicky process of decorating! We knew we were going to do black antlers around the bottom tier - that was my job. I also made a black braid to go around the base and cover that edge. Originally we had planned to do the "Valentine" heart from season three on top, but Longpig somehow decided that no, making a bunch of human figures and arranging them on the top was going to be way easier! Because she is crazy ;p So we committed to the Eye of God motif of arranged bodies. Obviously we weren't going to do the whole eye, but we thought a nice people colour wheel would get the idea across. The people were made of modeling chocolate that I made from chocolate melting wafers and corn syrup. the top of the cake was Longpig's baby!


Fondant braid, still covered in icing sugar.


Attaching the fondant braid with buttercream, with the first three people in place.

When it came to start molding the antlers, Gats stepped in to provide more direct assistance.


Gats and me working on antlers.

Longpig had made her first three people and put them directly on the cake - we then realized that we were going to have to steam the fondant and that it wouldn't be kind to the chocolate, so she decided to make them on the table and add them afterwards. This made it harder on her later when she was trying to fit them together. She was definitely regretting not trying to make the heart at this point!


People waiting to go on the cake.

That was not the only facepalm moment we had though. We were attaching the antlers with the buttercream - the white buttercream - knowing that we cold clean it up later... It proved to be a giant pain in the butt to so so and required very careful work with q-tips, skewers, and finally paintbrushes dipped in water to dissolve the sugar.... in the end we didn't wind up stealing the fondant, since we had to wash so much of it anyway. We just painted over it with water. This whole cake business wound up using a lot more of my archaeology and conservation skills than I would have expected :V


Me performing surgical frostingectomy on the cake, with a growing army of people in the background.


All of us working on painting the cake.

After that, Longpig started arranging her people. Gats suggested making balls to go around the based of the top tier, and he made them while I attached them - this time with the black icing. The people were tricky and took a long time, and even after they were on, they needed to be painted. Longpig was quite pleased by her colour progression, and at how the texture of the modeling chocolate mimicked the crackelure effect of the people in the eye from the show.


Me still cleaning up the white while Gats makes balls. Hurr.


Longpig working on her people palate palette >.>


People on, balls attached, people painting in progress.

Once the people were on, we decided to leave it.... as it was 2 am -_- We knew we wanted to add *something to the cake* to give it a little more height and pizzazz, but we weren't sure what.


Cleaned antler closeup!


People on cake!

The next day, I remembered what we'd originally talked about - adding some bloody sugar work! Longpig concurred. This was slightly tricky as it turned out all the numbers had been somehow wiped off out candy thermometer.... Longpig made the sugar, while Gats and I did science experiments and intensive googling of thermometers of the same type to approximately determine where the hard crack stage was on the thermometer. We confirmed with the drop test of course, and Longpig laid out the arterial spray (which was delicious) on trays I prepped. She'd also added the lettering to the tray, which turned out beautifully despite her having shaky hands that day.


Lettering on the base.


Aterial spray is on the way!


Adding the spray to the cake. Cakes with arterial spray are 20% cooler.

And then - our beauty was complete!