The Story of the Cherry Hog

Once upon a time there were 3 sisters that grew up in the city of New Orleans with their 2 older brothers and parents. They were not exactly poor, but things were very tight, as they were living on one modest accountant's salary. Melba, the mom, knew how to make every penny stretch. She was very frugal. There were never any treats like candy, soda, chips, or cookies in the house. Those things were reserved for very special occasions.

Since vacations were out of the budget, the family would make day trips a few times a summer to a nearby state park. The kids would swim in the Bogafalaya river and play on the sandy beach. Melba would pack an ice chest and picnic basket and they would spend the day swimming, eating, and relaxing.

On one particular trip to the river, Melba really splurged and bought a bag of fresh cherries. Not a big bag, mind you. But this was still a really special treat for the kids to get such an extravagance.

So on this particular day, after lunch, the 2 youngest sisters, Sharon and Janice, decided to go for a nice long swim, anticipating their refreshing treat of cherries upon their return. They wanted to save them for the just the right moment, to enjoy them to their fullest. So after their nice swim in the river, they happily skipped back to the picnic table, excited about the luscious fruit that awaited them. But alas, to their dismay, they discovered that their older sister Barbara (aka the Cherry Hog) had eaten them all! All of them! All that was left was a bag of pits and stems.

Needless to say the 2 little sisters were disappointed..... no, devastated..... no, scarred for life! Despite years in therapy and reading many self help books, they have not been able to work through the trauma of this event. In this tragic story they did not live happily ever after. So needless to say, to this day they give Barbara grief about it any chance they can get.

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Last week, when the whole family was invited to a friend's house on the bayou for a Good Friday seafood boil, they took the opportunity to also celebrate Barbara's birthday.

And here is the Cherry Hog's birthday cake.

CH with her cake. She loved it.



Sharon and CH.

Sharon, CH and Janice.

Seafood boil of crabs , crawfish, potatoes, corn and more!

And fresh boiled shrimp! It was so yummy!

J-Man got to drive the boat!

Cherry Hog and her nephew D.

The cake was yummy and enjoyed by all. We had a wonderful day of boating, eating, and playing board games.

Note: Cherry Hog claims to have no memory of this event ever happening. Classic case of denial, if you ask me.

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HOW TO MAKE CHERRY HOG'S CAKE:

My BFF Heather gave me the great idea of using Styrofoam as the base of the cake. I used an 8 inch ball and cut it a little shorter than in half. I cut a flat bottom so it would stand up, and I used another piece of styro as "sand paper" to shape the bottom half of the cherry. (I learned that trick in a Collette Peter's demo.)

Then I sharpened wooden dowels and drove them thru the styro and into the cake drum base for stability. I used 3, but in retrospect I could have done with just 2.

I then attached a circle of parchment paper to the top of the styro with buttercream to form a barrier with the cake.

First layer of cake in place.

I put a ball of modeling chocolate down in the hole to serve as the pit. Tee hee. Then I plugged the hole with the cake from the heating core.

Second layer of cake in place.

Carved to a cherry shape with a sharp knife. I intentionally went with a somewhat asymmetrical look, because real cherries are not perfectly round. Also makes the carving easier; I love that!

Then I applied a basecoat of thickened ganache over the whole thing. The ganache is 2 parts semi sweet chocolate to one part heavy cream. You let it cool to a thick paste consistency and then apply it just like a buttercream coat with a hot spatula. It firms up to make a nice chocolate shell; a wonderful surface on which to apply your fondant.

I learned this ganaching technique from the Australian cake ladies and I love it. It is now my go-to technique for odd shaped cakes. (I am going to show this technique in our next DVD release...YAY!)

I smeared the whole cake with piping gel and then applied red fondant. I used a wad of fondant cupped in my hand in lieu of fondant smoothers. This works great on round and curved shapes.

I then gave the whole cake a liberal rubdown with everclear alcohol to get the excess cornstarch off before airbrushing. What??? No Crisco? I know what you are thinking. Sharon rubs down everything with Crisco! Yes, this is true, but not in the case of airbrushing. That will cause the airbrush color to not go on smoothly and you might get blotching.

After the everclear dried (took about 2 minutes) , I gave it several coats of red color. Let the coats dry in between or you will get pooling and dripping of color. Here it is still wet with color. (And I am still blowing red snot a week later.)

One more coat of color and dried.

I made the stem by wrapping several 18 gauge floral wires with brown floral tape and then airbrushed brown and green over that. I just stuck the stem down thru the center of the cake and down into the base of the styro. Note: This is not food safe, but it was for Cherry Hog so I did not care. The proper thing to do would have been to coat the part of the stem going down into the cake with chocolate and dried before inserting.

I made the beach chair with the cutter set here. I cut the pieces from white gumpaste. After fully dried I painted them with brown airbrush color mixed with everclear to make the wood look. The seat of the chair is white gumpaste. Ain't it cute?? I love this chair! The sand is Domino's brownulated sugar from the grocery store.

It was a lot of fun making this cake! This is when I love caking the most. A fun, challenging cake that has a special story to go with it.

Now you all go make one for your favorite Cherry Hog!

Happy Hogging!

Sharon

http://www.sugaredproductions.com/

PS. Remember you can click on the photos for a larger view.


Edited to add comments from my 2 sisters:

Janice Mary said...
This is Janice, the middle sister. What Sharon was too kind to tell you is that in that picture of the three of us with the cake...just before we took a bite, Cherry Hog wisked it away and ate the whole thing! This time pit and stem and all! She can't help herself.

April 14, 2009 1:47 PM

Barb said...
Hey, the CH here. I have to admit that I do not remember eating those cherries. I absolutely love fresh cherries to this day, so it kind of doesn't surprise me, but I know there must have been a reason because I can't believe my Mother would have let me eat them all. Like, maybe I thought everyone else had had some already, or maybe I made a deal to wash the dishes if she let me have them all. I don't know. Awesome cake, huh!! I can't believe how much it looks like a real cherry. That was really a cool surprise. Sharon lured me upstairs while they brought the cake in from the car. And very tasty too! OK, gotta go eat some cherries. Later.

April 14, 2009 1:54 PM