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Now THAT’S a Star Wars cake
By Great White Snark | May 22, 2007
A little over a month ago, I was horrified when super-blog BoingBoing brought attention to a cake with a half-assed likeness of the Death Star. I won’t reprint the pictures here, but follow the link and see if you can come up with a better description than this: Large, pre-historic ball of turd with a dent in the side.
UPDATE: Consummate good sport Ruth, creator of the maligned Death Star cake, stops by the comments section and points us to other, legitimately- and comedically-pathetic Death Star cakes.
Now, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment. I mean, hey! It’s a Star Wars cake! That alone is worth a hearty slap on the back. But of all of the amazing cake artistry out there, this is the one that BoingBoing decided to post? Questionable, at best.
So, I took the advice of a hippie friend of mine and decided to do something about it. What, exactly? Well, I called the person to whom I usually turn when no one else will listen to my somewhat-baseless, annoying tantrums…. my Mom. (Did I mention that my Mom is a bit of a cake artisan in her limited spare time?)
The timing couldn’t have been better. I wanted to be able to say, “Now that’s a Star Wars cake,” and she wanted to make a cake for my brother’s birthday. That my brother had no particular interest in a Star Wars-themed birthday cake had little bearing on the matter.
After much deliberation over what shape the cake should take (X-Wing fighter? Jabba the Hutt? Star Destroyer? Greedo?), we settled on Max Rebo, the keyboardist in Jabba’s palace band. The result was fantastic.
See an amazing new Star Wars cake or other geeky cake every week: Subscribe to Great White Snark by email or by RSS. (It’s free!)
UPDATE: Boingboing’s coverage of the Max Rebo Cake, including mildly-hilarious cake controversy.
My brother’s birthday coincided with my visit home to the East Coast this past weekend, so I was able to photo-document the “before” stages. My brother shot the “after” pictures… see if you can figure out which one of us actually knows his way around a camera.
The nearly-completed keyboard. Those are Jelly-Bellies on the side. (This is the earliest-stage picture I could get… curse my Mother for waking up so early to make a cake for me.)
What would become the keys on the keyboard.
The completed keyboard.
Early stages of Max’s body.
Sculpting the body.
The body, in place. That hole on top was for the toothpick that secured the head, which was made entirely of fondant (icing).
Et voila!
Happy Birthday!
The “photography snob” shot.
Cutting the first slice.
The cake was 100% edible… yellow cake and fondant (icing).
In the final act of this homage to Star Wars, I did my best imitation of the Rancor beast, ripping off Max’s arms and then eating them, grotesquely. I’ll spare you from those pictures.
See an amazing new Star Wars cake or other geeky cake every week: Subscribe to Great White Snark by email or by RSS. (It’s free!)
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:06 am
Yeah, but what are the parts MADE of? What’s the yellow stuff? What’s the blue stuff? The internet demands answers!
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:15 am
Now THAT’S a cake.
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:10 am
Fricking fabulous.
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:26 am
Um, that’s amazing. I mean, now *that’s* a Star Wars cake. But maybe it’s actually a Return of the Jedi cake?
I actually thought the Death Star cake looked like one of those Nerf soccer balls. Every single one had a little chunk of foam missing, just like that dent in the side.
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:43 am
excellent cake - but seriously tho, what did you expect from the guys at boingboing? they actually seem to think that the faux ‘LA underground’ style juxtapose magazine trades in is some sort of real art movement worthy of note, instead of what it really is - a cynical ploy by people who are more illustrators than artists to ask ‘fine art’ prices for their work, by the people who only go to museums to find new material to rip off. it’s not like the guys at boingboing have ANY sort of aesthetic sense, so it makes perfect sense they’d post that awful death star cake…
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:58 am
Heh. I’m the Death Star cake creator. I’m totally not a cake artisan, although I have to add that the Death Star is about the least crafty one I’ve done. It was for two purposes: 1, the obvious “woohoo, Star Wars edibles!” as you point out, and 2, to prove to a coworker that I could make a round cake. (Ball pan, duh.) I only spent about an hour airbrushing it since I’d spent most of my time that night doing the guitar, which was the official birthday cake that day.
But if you *really* want to see half-assed, I found a picture online the other day, which I decided against linking for the sake of the proud creator. If it hadn’t been labeled Death Star, I wouldn’t have known. It was pretty much a regular 8-9″ round cake (so not spherical) with black lines piped in a grid across the top. Switched to yellow, I’d have been closer to accepting it as a holodeck cake instead.
The Max Rebo is awesome, but Greedo would have been way cool. I’m thinking about doing a Millenium Falcon in August.
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:33 am
Yummy! Props to your mom for a great looking, uber-geeky cake.
Me personally, I would have biten his head off, rancor style. :)
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:09 am
You are the coolest person I know.
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:48 am
I like butter-cream frosting instead of that clay like sugar frosting. Guess that limits my ability to eat cakes that are really sculptures. I stopped watching ace of cakes b/c i never wanted to eat anything they were eating. and plus, all that drama…
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:39 am
I second that. But your mom is a close second.
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:39 am
I’m so jealous. I want one for my birthday. Your mom rocks!
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:46 am
Yeah, my Mom is cool. I am merely desperately geeky.
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:59 am
I know. But we put up with you anyway.
Hope it’s OK that I posted this–with grande links, of course–on my own blog.
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:17 am
Aaron, per the captions (remember, reading is fundamental), the whole thing is yellow cake, regular frosting, and fondant… which is a harder icing that is commonly used on wedding cakes. It’s edible, you just don’t want to eat a lot of it. For instance, I wouldn’t recommend eating Max’s head, which is one big hunk of fondant.
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:18 am
Sung Hu, I third that emotion.
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:19 am
Jenny: Thanks, yo! I take that as a compliment of my idea and orchestrating of the event, rather than a compliment of my Mom’s considerable cooking skills.
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:38 am
Hi, Ruth! Glad to hear from you. I couldn’t find the exact Death Star cake you referenced, but I found another hilariously-pathetic one, so I’ll update my post.
The Millennium Falcon was actually on our list of possibilities, as well… I think that could be cool… cheers to you.
By the way, in case BoingBoing doesn’t print it, here’s the response I sent to the note from Cass (whom my Mom affectionately called “adorable”):
Just wanted to tell Cass to consider Ruth’s honor intact. As I said in my note to you and in my blog, I applaud her efforts, but occasionally I indulge in a bit of hyperbole. For instance, of course Ruth’s cake looks better than a turd (I’m just really bad at analogies and commonly resort to poo jokes), and my Mom is a cake artisan as much as she’s a cook and a gardener… it’s just one of her many hobbies.
Perhaps I will attempt to make a cake myself. I’ll entitle the post, “Now that’s a cake that ended up looking like roadkill. Whoops.”
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:58 am
Seriously, your mom rocks! Has she ever thought of selling such original creations?
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:02 am
Thanks, Chris. I’ll pass that along. She’s loving all this adulation… thankfully she’s so unjustifiably humble that there’s no risk of her getting a big head.
Being the capitalist that I am, I’ve encouraged a cake-making side business, but she has less than no time available for that sort of thing.
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Your mom has nice hands… any face pics? does she have a myspace?
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:37 pm
No, digg lurker, she probably thinks “my space” is where she keeps the canned goods in the kitchen.
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Wow.
I got an X-Wing cake on my seventh birthday, but this… This is something else.
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Thanks, Gog. My Mom barely understands this “Internet” and “Digg” thing, but she’s appreciating all the compliments.
At least you had a good 7th birthday.
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Did you make the fondant - because if it was store bought, I don’t envy the person who had to eat it. That stuff looks good, but out the the store premade stuff is nasty. Anyway, cool cake!!
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Ouch brotha, your pics are broke now.
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Aw, all the pictures have disappeared. You ought to host them on Flickr.
For everyone else, Duggmirror caught a copy:
http://duggmirror.com/offbeat_news/Now_THAT_S_a_Star_Wars_cake/
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:27 pm
When will people learn that image shack blows?
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:31 pm
GWS, any chance of getting a taste of Rebo, or his keyboard? Wanna see if it tastes as good as it looks!
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Woah man they all look like frogs, that’s AMAZING. I think I saw a frog on Degoba.
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Kendra, don’t know if the Mom-person made the fondant or bought it.
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Seabreezeman: Some people learn the hard way about Imageshack and its blowage. All hail Photobucket.
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Impressive.. check out my the R2-D2 cake my wife made http://farm1.static.flickr.com/172/485178057_b136252f98_b.jpg
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Nice!
May 24th, 2007 at 4:17 am
Thats a really cool cake!
May 24th, 2007 at 5:29 am
It’s mentioned above…The parts are made of “fondant” which is sort of a chocolate smooth type icing I beleive. Yuo’ll see a lot of wwedding cakes made with icing like this these days vs. the traditional whipped and buttercreme icings.
Great cake!!!!
May 24th, 2007 at 7:59 am
very cool. nice work!
May 24th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
I had a rather cool Darth Vader cake for my 40th. LOTS of black icing. Since it was also a very large cake I had lots to take home after the party which was when I discovered that the human digestive system can’t cope with black food colouring…
May 24th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Someone shoud pitch GWS’ Star Wars cake to the Letterman show or something.
May 26th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
ahem…
and, LO, the cake wars were ended by a few mere strokes of frosting from a true master…lol…jk…enjoy!
May 26th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
[…] Now THAT’s a Star Wars Cake — And it certainly is! Check out this amazing looking cake created to look like Max Rebo. […]
May 28th, 2007 at 10:47 am
You are most certainly welcome. I am a dabbler of the cake arts myself. For my niece’s birthday, I made a Corpse Bride-inspired birthday cake for her:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/empressofmetal/46012017/
Not as stunning as your mom’s creation, but it was my first attempt at fondant. And I had to make it from memory right after seeing the movie (there weren’t really any photos of it online).
Honestly, I am STILL mesmorized by this Max Rebo cake. I can’t stop looking at these photos. I think you should make postcards out of the one with the two candles in it.
May 29th, 2007 at 12:11 am
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June 5th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
[…] cake shaped like Max Rebo [wiki], who performed for Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi (1983). Link - via Blue’s News […]
June 16th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Wow, that’s a pretty damn impressive cake…
July 25th, 2007 at 6:17 am
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November 20th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
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November 28th, 2007 at 12:51 am
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November 28th, 2007 at 12:52 am
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January 29th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
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February 11th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Um, looks like something a rather talented 8 year old can make out of play dough…