Ten Year 9/11 tribute Cake

[Isolder74]

I have finished and delivered the cake for the firefighters. This time I took the cake to the main HQ where they keep the city's Ladder unit.








Pictures of stage one of the truck's construction.




Stage two of the cake's construction. Frosting the cake. Hi Tim!



Stage three adding on the wheels and the ladder.



A close up of the Wheel Wells.




A close up of some of the details. These are photoshoped to zoom into them so the picture quality won't be as good.





The finished cake and me posing with it. The final cake ended up weighing almost 40 pounds. On the side of the cake is written, "To Our Heroes. We Remember and Thank You." The truck itself is patterned after Ladder 3 one of the fire units destroyed when the towers collapsed down onto it. It's probably not a perfect recreation as all I can find are photos of the damaged truck which isn't much help.

I'd estimate that 99% of the truck is edible. That is leaving off the toothpicks holding on the hoses on the side and the foil on the gum. The cabinets are Big Red Gum, the hoses are black licorice, the Diamond-plate Extra gum(Thanks Wrigley's for dying the once perfect Spearmint GREEN!!!!!! ), the bumpers and ladder are sugar cookies, and the lights are Jolly Ranchers.




The firefighters posing with the cake on the bumper of the Ladder unit. One of the firefighters loved the little details on the cake including the diamond-plate, the cannon, and the little doors on the sides of the cake. In fact that was all one of the four could talk about was the fact I added in the utility cabinets onto the side.

Comments are always welcome!

[Mutant Sheep]

You gave them a cake on the 12th? (Yes I know that these pictures were not taken in the past hour and probably taken a bunch of hours ago. The timing was just too good to pass up though.
Its a nice cake. 40 pound cakes. Your awesome.

[Serpentine]

Hey, I remember you. You're the guy who does the ossum cakes!

[Isolder74]

You gave them a cake on the 12th? (Yes I know that these pictures were not taken in the past hour and probably taken a bunch of hours ago. The timing was just too good to pass up though.
Its a nice cake. 40 pound cakes. Your awesome.

I gave them the cake 8:30 PM Mountain Standard Time, 9/11/2011.

PS it's still 9/11 for me right now!

[Twin Dragons]

My nephew would freaking love this!

Could you possibly link to a the directions in this monstrositys creation?

[Isolder74]

It's a bit complicated to explain. I do have most of the steps in the pictures.

Bake a batch of sugar cookies lining the bottom of a half sheet pan with parchment to make removing easier. The idea is to end up with a sheet of cookies which you will then trim down to the length and width after they've cooled. frost the cookies for the ladder with royal icing and let cure.

I only left off baking the 4 13/9 cakes you start with before you trim down the sides. Top the cakes. Stack them end to end one cake opposite the other so they fit squarely together frosting between the cakes and the ends facing. (not a issue if your have square sided pans most pans aren't.)

(like so) /-------\\----------/
............\-------//----------\

You should have the front and back square now. Trim down the side to the right width(I cut off about 1 inch and a half). Cut out the notch in the middle behind the cab of the truck and place the section you cut out(one full layer thick) as the top of the cab.

...............................|---\
(like so) |-------\\-\....|----|
............|-------//----------|

Brush off as many of the crumbs you can with a pastry brush then frost with a thin crumb coat.

The first set of pictures is after trimming the cake I put a crumb coat of confectioner's icing(doughnut glaze) on to let it set overnight.(only an hour is really needed) Trim about 1/3rd of the tops of the ding dongs off to make the wheels sit on the board in the right position(or you could make the cake one layer thicker and frost under the cake black but doesn't look as good) then using a butter knife, using the trimmed wheels as a guide, cut out the wheel wells. then use a spoon to excavate the wheels wells out so the wheels will fit inside. Set the wheels aside for now.

You will need about 2 batches of buttercreme(2 sticks of butter, 1 tsp vanilla 1 2 pound bag of powder sugar + milk to right consistency{changes every time} = one batch) Dye 2/3rds your frosting fire engine red. Frost the cake. Trim some of the extra cookies to make the bumpers, you will need two layers worth and frost them grey. To decorate you will need, grey, blue and white frosting. Put the wheels back into the wheel wells. If you want to add a bit of action to the truck turn the front wheels to make the truck turning instead of static. Place on the cake the candy and frost on the details. You might need to use the remainder of the royal icing to help some of the candy stick.

I used, red, orange and white tic tacs, red jolly ranchers, big red gum, any foil wrapped gum, and black licorice(shoestrings and large pieces.)

[H Birchgrove]

That is so awesome, that I can't begin to describe the awesomeness of this awesomeness.

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

And here I was hoping that you'd have constructed two towers of cake...

[Isolder74]

And here I was hoping that you'd have constructed two towers of cake...

I don't think I'd ever be able to bring myself to do that.