AT-AT Walker Surprise

Let me start by saying that I'm violating one of my basic blogging guidelines by posting this entry. I'm a stickler for sequential blogging but I'm just soooo excited about this cake and there's too many blog items in queue before this one, lol.

Some of you already know that my husband, Dennis, has three great loves in his life. He loves me the most (at least that's what I tell him); he loves Porsches (especially the Porsche 911 Carrera); and he loves Star Wars. More specifically, he loves the old-school episodes IV, V, and VI and even more specifically, he loves Imperial Stormtroopers and AT-AT Walkers. So when it came time to start planning for his birthday in December, I knew immediately that I wanted to make him an AT-AT Walker cake. I had already made him a Stormtrooper cake, a Porsche cake, and a Porsche cookie so I guess I was saving the best and most difficult for last.

Dennis' birthday is on December 26th (which totally sucks eggs, btw) and we usually have a fairly quiet celebration since everyone is either out of town or busy celebrating Christmas with family. This year, however, I decided to throw him a surprise birthday party the friday before his birthday while friends were still in town. All the guests did an amazing job keeping the secret and it's an understatement to say that he was simply surprised walking through the door. I have an awesome video of his reaction but for the sake of my marriage, I dare not post it, lol. It was a bit stressful making the cake in secret but the expression on his face when he saw his AT-AT cake more than justified the 50+ hours I spent slaving over it. Without further ado, here is my dear hubby next to his birthday cake holding my present to him, the LEGO Motorized AT-AT walker he's been denying himself.

It took a few minutes to convince him (and some guests) that the cake needed to be cut and eaten but finally he conceded and stabbed it with the cake cutter.

Inside was a moist almond cake with cream cheese buttercream filling. Yum!!

Making this cake was quite a challenge for me since I usually rely on my husband (who has an engineering background) to build my cake supports. Left to my own resources, I'm delighted to see that I've actually picked up some construction skills of my own :). Below is the basic framework after the underside and legs were decorated.

.....with the cake carved and iced with buttercream.
TIP: When making a scale replica of anything (especially for your engineer husband), it's always helpful to seek out blueprints and enlarge them to the size. Finally, please forgive me as I post too many photos of the this cake - there's just so many interesting angles.
Some close-up shots with better lighting.

Happy Birthday, hubby!!!

P.S. I accidentally left out a few details on the AT-AT but you won't notice unless you're a Star Wars fan. There's not too many of those out there, right?

Lien Sanchez

Crazy Cake Company

http://www.crazycakecompany.com/