Thursday, January 7, 2010

Peter Molyneux and the Fake Cake Caper

At last, a beautiful emulsion of nerd and food are here to tweak your imagination and whet your appetite! No, this is not the announcement of a fan fiction I am beginning or the new autobiography by the previously mentioned videogame creator...the title is merely a clever (there I go again with being clever...) attempt to combine the two topics at hand.

The first being that I have been recently propositioned (eww..no..just keep reading!) to make a birthday cake for a friend's adorable baby! This cake is going to feature fondant and while I'm very excited this means that I need to practice some more before my big debut. My only other fondant experience occurred in the sweltering summer heat which resulted in runny fondant, smearing colors, and a mysterious bear hiding in the grass.

Therefore, I decided to spend a portion of my day off creating fondant and decorating a cake pan with it. Why a cake pan? Because I'm certainly not going to bake an entire cake and waste all those precious and valuable ingredients for some Play-Skool Fun n' Fondant adventure, that's why.

All in all, I think my fake-cakes turned out okay. I still am having some trouble keeping my polka-dots round and my fondant from tearing. I used homemade fondant which is slowly but surely making me contemplate purchasing ready-made fondant from the store. It would already be the desired consistency, and I would have more than enough to use for the entire cake...which BTW is supposed to look like this:
Now, I am MUCH better at drawing than I am at cake decorating which isn't saying much since I have no drawing talent whatsoever. In addition to this fondant practice, I have to attempt to make butterflies out of gumpaste. On top of THAT I have to make said butterfies sturdy enough to be able to stick up off the cake with fishing wire. Am I in over my head here? I don't freakin' know, I'm the one who put myself here in the first place! I am, however, incredibly excited. I also have been offered the opportunity to make a friend's wedding cake this summer (if they don't change their minds after seeing the baby-cake!) so I want to become really good at this by then. Therefore, if anybody at all needs a fondant cake done...just let me know. I don't charge obscenely...I literally only ask that you pay for the ingredients (and I cost out the recipes so that you are paying for the 4c. of flour used rather than the whole 5lb bag). I am up for any possible practice!

But what does this have to do with Sir Molyneux you ask? Well, as I'm sure you're already aware...I am quiiiite a fan of a little game called Fable 2. As I recall, that text I hyperlinked was actually the 2nd blog entry I had ever written in my entire life. Hmm. Anyways! Point being, Molyneux has officially announced Fable III. How excited am I?!?!?! Not very. Actually, I am less excited about this than I ever thought possible. Daddy Fable basically said that he reconstructed the entire CONCEPT of an RPG. Of course, he likes money just as much as the rest of us and did not state what he meant (why the hell would you buy the game if you knew all the answers, right?) however, he did reveal that the character you play as is the son/daughter of the Hero in Fable II. Also, that the game revolves around overthrowing and becoming King/Queen of Albion. What turns me off about that idea? A few key words that he included; "helping," "taxes," and "keeping promises." Huh? I play video games to get away from all that real-life bullshit!

At his most recent Portland, ME concert, MC Chris said that he hated playing Left 4 Dead with people who just hide in the closet and wait for the Tank to die. "You're already hiding from real life," he said, "You can't DOUBLE HIDE!" That quote is what I think of this setting for Fable III and what my problem is with so many Wii video games...if you can get off your ass and do it in real life...why waste hours in front of the TV doing the same thing? I'm hoping that this game surprises me, but if not? At least I didn't have high hopes from the beginning.


2 comments:

  1. I think that homemade fondant is hard to work with but tastes SO MUCH better than the store bought. It just takes lots of practice and patience. I think you did a great job with your mock cake! Keep up the good work!

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  2. Thanks Jess! I think I'm going to play with it a couple more times before I make the real cake. I'm just so afraid of adding too much sugar and having it crack :-/

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