Back to the Future Clock Tower Cake!

Hello! To those who haven't seen it, this is the cake I worked on for my "little" bro's b-day. It made sense to make as it was a set of movies we both watched repeatedly growing up. I actually consider it my fave trilogy...yes, even better than Star Wars...yeah I said it. I can even see the hordes of Star Wars nerds running to beat down my door now to tell me to "Take that back!" I even picture my older brother among them. Though I'm sure you can't blame me, the trilogy was an amazing one, and every time I bring up those movies I have yet to find someone who's seen them to tell me they disliked them. Oh sure, people will have their favourites in the trilogy; I myself love the 2nd one the best, as it has 3 different times in it and a complex storyline...plus is was hilarious to see their take on the not so distant future. All the movies had one thing in common, and that was the same scene of the clock tower being struck by lightning. I felt the iconic image of the clock tower was perfectly round enough to make a fantastic nerdy cake design! I even researched it to see if it's been done before and no apparently not in Google images, though I did see an Uncle Jail Bird Joey cake which I even contemplated making if things went sour with this one. Luckily I had been thinking of doing this for months and had a back-up plan to things if they went wrong. There were a few stressful moments when making the cake but everything went surprisingly well. The first attempt at making the cake I tried making a gluten-free cookie of the clock face to simply place on top of the cake, however, like most gluten-free cookie recipes there was a complication...it fell apart. Luckily I didn't resort to panicking and decorated the cake the day that I planned to and gave myself some extra time to do the little details. So I made a yellow gluten-free cake from a package as I've seen a lot of chocolate cakes and wanted to try something different. Then I whipped up a gluten-free vanilla frosting also from a package that I spread on the cake to support the fondant I covered the cake with. I then rolled out the fondant and placed it on the cake and to give the clock an antique look I mixed some of my India Tree yellow natural food colouring with pure lemon extract to create a nice wash and painted that onto the fondant with my food paint brushes. The food colouring mixed with lemon extract (or even vodka if you wish) reacts as a watercolour paint that absorbs nicely into the fondant and the more you wash over it the more vibrant the colour appears. Once that was done I used my picture reference of the clock tower that I printed up to do the next steps. These are the pix I used:

This one was my uber nerdy reference for complete geek accuracy on having the time set on the exact time Marty travels back to the future:

So I began cutting the Roman numerals out of fondant with little metal alphabet cookie cutters I luckily found at Degrees Kitchen Store. I placed the fondant on with water once I figured out exactly where I wanted it to go. It took a bit of adjusting to look accurate but it came together nicely. Then once everything was all set I hand painted on melted dark chocolate for the contrast with the clock and put the rest in a ziplock bag to cut a hole in the corner and pipe out onto the edges for a more textured edge of the clock. This was the most nerve-wracking step I much admit but even though it wasn't accurate to the picture it was effective enough for me not to worry.

For the finale and the whole reason I had the idea to do this for my bro's b-day in the first place, I used an ice cube tray I bought forever ago at The Silver Snail comic book store that had Back to the Future logos and license plates all over it and I decided to melt white chocolate into it. Again I used the same technique as I did when I was antiquing the cake and mixed natural food colouring with lemon extract and painted it on the chocolate. Interesting fact: It didn't sit on the chocolate as well as it did with the fondant as the chocolate was a bit waxier and slightly melty, plus the lemon was more evident on the chocolate (as told to me by my brother's girlfriend who tasted the logo) where as the taste almost seemed to disappear in the fondant. It was an interesting experiment none the less and I think it made the cake all the more dramatic:

And now for a few fun pix from the Back to the Future themed party. This is me dressed up for the occasion:

And this is my little bro who appears to love the theme of his party. No, he isn't three, we put three candles on his cake to symbolize past, present and future, a tradition my family started because we were sick of putting a gazillion candles on a cake, and frankly so many candles can ruin the look of a beautifully made cake before it's hacked up to pieces and eaten! Plus this past, present and future thing works quite well with the theme, don'tcha think?

Note here he was doing his Biff Tannen impression. You know, the one in the second movie where Biff uses his cane to beat Marty over the head to repeat his famous catch phrase, "Hello, hello! Anybody home! Think McFly! Think!"

Anyway, I enjoyed making this cake and luckily I didn't feel like I had to go back in time to remake it, I think it turned out quite well...though if I did have a time machine I'd go back in time to eat it again. It was delish!