Rolleiflex Camera Cake

This cake was made for a teenager who has a passion for photography. The cake was modeled from a vintage Rolleiflex camera and her! I wanted to mix the two, because adding an additional personal object or person gives the cake more personality and meaning. This was probably my second most challenging cake.

Production photos for the Rolleiflex camera cake.

When tackling a project like this you must have a plan. You really can’t just start piecing things together hoping it will turn out. The ability to draw and knowledge of how to build structures also benefits how successful the concept will come out. So before beginning the cake I made a set of templates for each side of the camera and all the basic shapes and pieces that would attach to the sides. All my cakes are custom and everything is done by hand: the cutting, building, shaping pieces and painting details.

I wish I had more time to take more photos and document setup, but sometimes time doesn’t permit when you are on a schedule. The camera cake was made from 5, 6″ round butter-almond cakes. They were stacked and held together with supports. The female figure was created from homemade sculpted fondant. All together I think this cake took 12-14 hours to make. I learned a lot of tricks and things making this cake.

Everyone knows store-bought fondant tastes pretty bad, almost like cardboard with a touch of something simular to sweetness. A lot of people don’t like the taste at all. My fondant is made from scratch, although-pure sugar, tastes really good.  The amount of color it would take to dye the fondant black would be so much, it would make the fondant slightly bitter and also change its elasticity properties. So, this cake was actually painted black, layers upon layers of black. That’s one issue that took longer than planned, but I learned while doing this how to do it correctly next time and paint it solid black, painting 2 coats total, instead of numerous coats! Also, it was interesting to find: covering a square/rectangle cake take 3x longer than covering a simple round cake. But, it was also my first time doing so. All in all, the cake came out beautifully.

All the lettering on the cake is hand piped or painted. It takes a very steady hand(years of practice), knowing when to breathe:), and an immense amount of patience. This cake was very challenging and so much fun to make. Enjoy!

Rolleiflex Camera Cake 2012, Kat’s Cakes, VA