Molding a logo

[Tri2Cook]

I've been asked to do a cake for 200 people for a customer appreciation thing a local company is doing. Easy enough (wedding cake type servings, so not too huge) but they want the company logo on the cake which (lucky me) is black and red on a white background. They're giving me free reign with how I go about it but I could tell during my talk with them that they're hoping for something more unique than the logo printed on an icing sheet (I really don't like using those anyway so I'm fine with that). I'm leaning towards something with a little dimension and the words "piping" and "skills" shouldn't be used in the same sentence without including "lack of" if we're talking about me. I was thinking if I made a mold I could fill the black areas with a chocolate agar gel blackened with a bit of coloring and the red areas with a red gel then flood the background with a vanilla milk agar gel whitened up with ye good ol' titanium dioxide. It's a simple logo so making a mold shouldn't be too bad. Does this sound as ridiculous to everyone else as it's beginning to sound to me the more I think about it? What other ideas would you cake artists suggest? I've considered pastillage as well. I don't know, I keep telling people celebration cakes aren't my thing but they keep asking for them anyway. Maybe a printed sheet isn't all that bad after all.

Edit: I've already decided on my own that this probably isn't a good plan but I'll still leave the post open to other suggestions. Thanks.

Edited August 17, 2008 by Tri2Cook (log)

[JeanneCake]

How big is the logo? What about using chocolate to create it? Use a piece of acetate, get the logo in reverse, outline the black and red areas, fill in the colors and then "flood" the back of the whole thing in white. Since you're tracing the logo, you're not really piping freehand so no worries there.

I find that the bigger I make these chocolate things, the more prone I am to breaking them so coating the back helps with that. Another trick from the Amazing Annie

There's also something I've heard of called a frozen buttercream transfer, which is similar to the chocolate technique, only using buttercream instead and freezing it as you create it. I don't have any experience with this so I can't comment on whether it is easier or harder, but maybe it is worth looking into?

[Tri2Cook]

The logo won't be too large. The logo can't cover the entire cake because they want some "thank you" type text as well. During my discussion with the customer they made it clear that they wanted to err on the side of not having leftovers. I showed them some pans and combinations so they could visualize it. They decided two 18"x12" together was what they want. I'm not as confident as they are that it will be sufficient since they're cutting it themselves and I can't control portion size. Since I'm already doing the cake at cost as a thank you (They hired us to do passed apps as well, even though an out-of-town caterer is doing the main meal. Catering is a fairly recent addition to what we do and we're not equipped at this time to do a served meal for 200 but they wanted to keep some of it local.), I'm going to have a smaller satellite cake available in case they need it at my own expense. If they don't need it I'll donate it to the local women's shelter, if they do need it I'm a hero. This job is more about advertising than profit anyway, most of the apps are going to be based on things we do at the restaurant.

Chocolate is an option but they were quite clear on the logo being an important thing, including color. Making chocolate true black and true red sounds like a difficult task (although I've never actually tried). I've played around with buttercream transfer before but it honestly hadn't occured to me as an option for this, that just might work.

Edited August 17, 2008 by Tri2Cook (log)

[JeanneCake]

I have better luck with liquid candy colors than the powdered ones (I always get tiny beads that are noticeable, especially with the red, when I use powder) and the color is very true.

I'd almost rather color chocolate than color buttercream!