The Cake That Was On Fire

Today was the 2nd Annual Edible Book Contest at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and after the combined effort of approximately 12 hours over the course of five days, I dropped off my “edible book” at Hamilton Library in the morning. That was a rather stressful thing, as my cake entry must have weighed almost 10 pounds.

When I got there, no one knew what the heck I was talking about or where I should go. They sent me up to the third floor to a deserted room. I went back downstairs, my arm ready to fall off, and had to wait around while they figured out where I should go. Eventually, I was directed to the offices in the back and I could put that beastly thing down.

Here I am with my entry: The Cake That Was On Fire. I won Second Place for People’s Choice and tied for first for Most Book Like. I think for the crowd, the book was a bit obscure, which is weird since Hunger Games is so huge right now. For that reason, I think my nightlock berries went mostly unnoticed. All you HG fans know their significance though! To learn all about how I made the cake, read Making The Cake That Was On Fire.

Voting and display of the entries began at 11:30 and so I went down there to remove my wrapping and take photos while people came around to vote. The entries all had more work put into them than last year, which was really nice to see even though there were less entries.

Here is a cake entry for The Great Gatsby. I didn’t get it because I’ve actually never read the book, but since Mr. Pikko gave me a Kindle for my birthday and this is an old book, I can actually get right into reading it. I’m not sure how it is that I haven’t read it…

This is the cake that took First Place People’s Choice and tied with me for Most Book Like: The Monster Book of Monsters from the Harry Potter books. As soon as I saw it I knew the baker would win because that is just too cool for words. Check out the side:

Seriously, way too cool. I asked the girl who made it and she said she used the grass setting on a piping tool. It took her five hours.

I loved this one, as I love the book. I was telling my former co-workers, The Kite Runner is one of only like four books that have ever made me cry. And I didn’t just cry, the tears flowed and flowed. If you haven’t read it, you must.

These are Cauldron Cakes from Harry Potter. There was so much cake to eat that I didn’t get a chance to try these. I was already dying of thirst after eating a piece of the Monster Book.

This entry is called Meta-S’more-phosis, which I’m guessing is a tribute to a Franz Kafka book, but I’m not entirely sure. It’s another book I haven’t read before.

I actually wanted to eat this entry during the contest because I hadn’t eaten lunch before I came.

This entry is for Hot Chocolate for the Mystical Soul. I didn’t get to eat this one either as I was busy serving my cake.

This is Musubi Man and Friend, which is based on Musubi Man: Hawaii’s Gingerbread Man. I hadn’t heard about this story until the editors at Quirk put that into the description of one of my bentos in Yum-Yum Bento Box.

Here’s my former co-worker D with her Changing Relationships with Books. See the Nook in the middle? My friends who work at Barnes would be happy! She told me the Kindle had too many little buttons. LOL!

And here is my cake again, because this one has the best lighting and angle so far. After judging, some Peacekeepers stormed into the library and tore my mockingjay decoration apart because it smacks of rebellion. Then they cut up my cake and ate it like a pack of muttations. *sob*

Kidding, after the contest you cut it up and let everyone eat it. With so much cake though, I had to take it back up to the office and leave it out for the department to eat, which they did!

Overall, a great first experience with fondant and I’m already planning Baby Girl’s cake for her 7th birthday later this year! I think I also need to invest in some good fondant cutting tools. At least I can finally put my “bento” cutters to use on what they were actually intended for!