How NOT to build a movie reel cake…my story!

Well, that’s because they’re in the garbage right now!! LOL!! Oh, more lessons learned on this one! I didn’t even take a good picture of it (hence the pic above) because I was too frustrated when we left the house with it…so, I’m glad the guys pulled out their camera phones when we got to the restaurant because what I presented did turn out pretty cute…just not at all what I had envisioned!

I had the best intention of making a movie reel cake for a great friend of ours who is the founder and CEO of an amazing multi-media company called Funnelbox. My husband has known Robb since 4th grade so I thought it’d be fun to make him a movie reel cake for a dinner celebration we had last night. Fortunately this was my gift to him, and not a paying client!! I don’t know what I would have done if I would have had to have had this cake done with reels…oh my!! Another reason I’m not going into business anytime soon!! I truly thought this cake would be simple…what’s so hard about making some thin cakes, slapping some reels on them, creating some film strips and whallah…good to go! – right!?! Hmmm, I guess not for me!! – maybe I should have researched it more!!

A couple days ago I designed the metal movie reel around this photo I found on flickr…I loved the design. The actual film round (that sat between the metal reels) was going to be rice krispy treats and then the film reel would be a fondant/gumtex mix (gumtex is a powdered you add to fondant to make it set up hard like gumpaste). I created a template from cardstock, rolled out my gray fondant, added a whole bunch of gumtex to it and spent an hour cutting and “fabricating” the reels to look like that photo. I was really pleased with how they turned out. So I let them sit under a fan for a day or two to dry out before painting them…that was my first mistake! I had never sprayed anything with color before and didn’t realize how long it can take for pieces, that are spray painted, to dry. One of the biggest problems I had was after I sprayed them with metallic color, they bowed and lost their rigidity!!! With only 4 hours until we had to leave for the party, I had to leave them behind because they looked horrible!! Here’s a picture of the aftermath (although it’s missing the top piece because that got ruined when I pulled the cake off so I threw it in the garbage in frustration)…the cake was meant to sit on the top of the two reels on this cute little red cake stand.
This picture is embarrassing for me…but my husband said you all needed to see it! And then he said, “It’s a good picture!” – commenting on the actual photo…not the horrible reels!

I was sooo sad! All that time spent making the reels, the rice krispy treat rolls, and the actual film strips that came off the roll complete with white rectangles and punch out holes along the edges…down the drain!

Another thing to remember if you attempt a cake like this is to wait to put on the white film squares until after you put the film strips on the cake. See how they’re a bit crooked (in the pic above)?! They all shifted a bit when I put the strips on and ended up a bit crooked for my tastes.

Now, looking back I should have done one like this (I found this today…why couldn’t I have seen this last week!) where the metal reel part overlapped the flim strip by only a 1/4″ or so…not 1″+ like I had planned. It would have looked so great with that cake sitting on top of the reels if the film strips were closer to the same size as the metal reel…8″ in diameter. Having the film strips sitting inside the reel so much made it hard to see them…lessons learned! Ohhhh, my famous last words…”next time”! So, learn from me…DON’T make the metal reel much more than 1/4-1/2″ bigger than the film round…and spray/paint days before you’ll need them so they’ll be nice and dried out!! You could even dry dust the gray fondant with silver luster dust and by-pass the entire spraying/drying process.

Fortunately I had a cake though…and a clapper board which at least mentioned Robb’s B-day (although that also broke). HA! I had the little top piece of the clapper board set up at an angle like it was opened, but it was too heavy and ended up breaking off while I attempted to put it on the cake, so I had to glue it closed. And I had made it HUGE because I thought it was going to sit a the base of all the cakes stacked…but now, with only the 6″ cake left…it looked ginormous! HAHA! I guess I just have to laugh at the whole thing…otherwise, I’ll start to cry!!

There’s no crying in cake right?!

All in all everyone enjoyed what I presented and said it tasted great. I used my basic vanilla cake recipe and added a can of Dulce De Leche to it…yum! The filling was vanilla buttercream and chocolate ganache. My husband said it tasted like almond roca…and it did! That perfectly described it for me. However, it was a bit dry for my taste…I think I probably overcooked it a bit! Next time I’d use a little simple syrup!

Well, I hope you all have a wonderful Mother’s Day!! Thanks for spending time with me today!! I hope if you make a movie reel, it’ll turn out beautiful and I have saved you all some tears!

Many blessings!