Calvin and Hobbes Cake

When my friend Andrea asked me to make a cake for her boyfriend's birthday, I jumped at the chance.  Andrea is one of my favorite people to serve cake to... why?  Because if it were socially acceptable, Andrea is someone who would cut a slice of the cake and then run off with the rest of it. :)

It all started with chocolate cake, chocolate ganache, and fresh strawberries.

Then, in case there wasn't already enough chocolate (is there even such a thing?)  I covered the whole cake in chocolate ganache.

After the first coating:

After a whole lot of smoothing:

Yes, you can also see my laptop, which I use to play music while I'm working, and my 2 varieties of vanilla extract, because one just isn't enough for me.

After the ganache set up, I covered the cake in fondant and carefully stenciled on the black stripes using softened fondant and a designer stencil.

Of course, this was my first time trying the stenciling technique myself (and I see people mess it up on TV all the time.)  So obviously I chose to use the most unforgiving color combination: black on white.  If something does get messed up, you can fix it using vodka.  Really, there are two options.  Either use a clean paintbrush with some vodka to clean up your mistake or drink the vodka until you can't see the mistake.  ;)

I added the image to the top of the cake using a combination of pin pricking through a picture I had printed out and just drawing it using an edible food color pen.  Once I had the design outlined, I started painting it with a combination of gel colors and petal dusts diluted with vodka.

I was pretty excited about this cake and about sharing it with friends.  Of course it was a big success.

Happy Birthday, Abe!