Cake Decorating Contest 2009

Once again, the budding pastry chefs at Rainier Christian Schools Maple Valley Elementary have put their creative talents to work in the annual PTF cake decorating competition. You may remember Sadie's entry last year:

She won first prize for her Kindergarten class, and she surely deserved it. This snowman was not only her own design, she did everything herself (except maybe tying the knot on the "scarf"). Good job, Sadie!

This year, Sadie got it into her head that she wanted to do a turkey pilgrim cake. We have a Thanksgiving figurine that sits on our dining room table in November that is, indeed, a turkey wearing a pilgrim hat. Sadie wanted to replicate that in cake form. So, we put our heads together and sketched out what such a cake might look like. A frenzy of food coloring, fondant, and frosting led to this little gobbler's entry into the cake contest:

A confession: I feel a bit guilty this year. I helped Sadie far more than for last year's entry. She conceived the idea, made the tail feathers, frosted the cake, formed the eyes and the wings out of fondant (and Jelly Bellies for the pupils of the eyes). I was going to let her sculpt the head and neck out of Truffle Cake Mix (a no-bake mixture made of cake crumbs, almond paste, honey, brown sugar and a few other sticky-icky things), because I thought the consistency would be like Play-doh, and Sadie is quite a good sculptress for a six-year-old. But, I had the hardest time getting the mixture to come together as a shapable substance. So I battled the mix while Sadie took a bath, tamed it into the approximate shape of a turkey's cognitive center (such as it is), and left it for Sadie to modify as she saw fit. She actually liked what I did, but was mad that I hadn't left it for her. So, it wasn't her fault that I did that part.

Anyway, win or lose, he is a rather charming bird.