How about that? A real pop-up cake! And not just a simple pop-up cake but a perfect handmade replica of the Emerald City spread from Robert Sabuda’s Wizard of Oz pop-up book. A classic pop-up that every pop-up book collector would like to have as a birthday cake. We just found out about this tasty project but it already has been five years ago since this cake was made. Jennifer Moshier, the creator of this showstopper, won the first place at a local contest.
Jennifer Moshier lives in New Jersey (USA) and graduated college in 1995 with a degree in graphic design. Jennifer was a graphic artist working in the industry for a few years before her career started to take a turn to being a web designer. Jennifer always had an interest in baking. She and her best friend used to bake all the time. “I always enjoyed watching the cake challenges on the food network. Around 2010, I was watching one of the shows and I turned to my husband and said, you know I bet I can do that.” Jennifer decided to enroll in the Wilton Cake Decorating classes at the local A.C.Moore. After that she was obsessed with cake decorating, getting better and better playing around at home baking all the time. In 2011 she found that there was a cake competition in New Jersey and Jennifer decided to go to see what it was all about and had a great experience. In 2012 the NJ show happened again and Jennifer decided to enter her first competition. This was when she entered the pop-up book cake.
Interview
We had the opportunity to ask Jennifer some questions about how she came up with the idea and how she created this award winning pop-up cake.
BPUB – How did you came up with the idea to make a pop-up cake?
JM – The theme for the competition was books in cake. I started thinking about what would be different and original and I thought how cool would it be if I could make a cake look like a pop-up book. At the time I did the cake I had not seen many like that. Originality is an important point in the scoring.
BPUB – The details are pretty impressive. Can you tell us more about how you’ve managed it to replicate the structure and artwork?
JM – I spent a lot of time with the book next to me and measured all the pieces to make myself a template to use to cut the fondant pieces. I rolled my fondant really thin, which makes the pieces very fragile. I laid popsicle sticks on the cut pieces and then cut another thin piece of fondant to cover the stick. The popsicle sticks were what I used to insert into the cake to hold the pieces up. To get the coloring on the pieces I used an airbrush with templates to make off areas I did not want to color. I then hand drew with edible makers all the detail lines. I also used edible food coloring to paint on the fine darker details.
“I spent a lot of time with the book next to me and measured all the pieces to make myself a template to use to cut the fondant pieces.”
Jennifer Moshier
BPUB – For someone who knows about Sabuda’s Wizard of Oz, its great to see a cake that is a perfect replica of the Emerald City. But how about the jury? Did they know about the original spread?
JM – Because the competition was all about books, most people had a copy of the book they were representing. This is very common for cake competitions. I have a copy of the cover but I am not sure if the judges knew that my cake was an exact replica of the book. Obviously from the cover they know the book I was representing was a pop-up book.
BPUB – What happened with the cake after the contest?
JM – Since the cake won first place and also the division I entered in the cake could not be entered anymore. I was however allowed to bring the cake to other competitions for the winner’s circle table. I brought the cake to the next competition I went to. I ended up leaving the cake there and the competition throws the cakes out at the end of the show. Because it was a real cake and would spoil I could not really keep it much more past that competition. The two competitions were about 10 months apart.
The original spread of Robert Sabuda’s Wizard of Oz pop-up book
Does this all tastes like more? Visit Jennifers website Prima Cakes Plus or follow her on FaceBook to see more of her beautiful creations. Thank you for your time Jennifer and now we know who to ask when we need a logo cake to celebrate our 100.000 YouTube subscribers!
