Geometric 80s Cake
In homage to my brother’s upcoming birthday (May 18th!), it was oh-so-necessary to make him a cake. Even though we live several time zones apart. And he dislikes cake. Think of this blog post as a digital birthday party. It respect the decade he was born in, I decided I’d decorate the cake in a 1980s geometric fashion.
My brother is awesome, no complaints here! As a child I loved watching him play computer games on the good old Gateway computer. I remembered the computer more for the cow print box than for the actual equipment the box housed. Friday night was computer night. I’d go with my parent who would drop him and his friend off at the computer store in town. Yes, they went out of the house to play with computers. The 1990s feel frighteningly primitive to nowadays….
In Sherwin Williams’ recent webpage Color Through the Decades, they note the mauving, the country chic, and Miami vice–were very pastel and very much the mid to late 1980s. I couldn’t use pastels here. I had a hard time rationalizing making geometric shapes out of rosy pink, peach, and soft blue. After all, my brother is still a BOY. So this Geometric 80s cake has a primary color motif going on.
If you’re an actual sane person, you won’t square off perfectly good round cakes. Or you may have square cake pans. I never know what internet readers have. But the Geometric 80s cake certainly looks more dramatic in a very angular form. I chose to use 6-inch cake pans for this project and the lean, tall, and sharp corners really play off of the jagged bark on the sides and top of the cake.
I went back to a new found cake staple: marble cake. It is so versatile and is super amazing for sculpting. Chilling the cake in the freezer for 15 to minutes before sculpting will also help the cake keep its shape. Even if you don’t use my marble cake recipe, be sure to use a cake that had a tight and solid crumb. Trying to cut and frost a cake made with delicate cake flour will lead to a crumbly mess.
Happy birthday my dearest brother, may your best of wishes come true!!
