Retirement Cake

Retirement Cake: Life's A Beach When You're Retired

This year, after over 30 years of teaching, my mom decided to retire.

And I decided to surprise her with a Retirement Cake! (My Most Ambitious Cake to Date!)

Now, when I was younger I used to think of retirees as old people with gray hair who lived in Florida and played golf. My mom is none of those things.  She doesn’t play golf, cards or tennis, and she doesn’t particularly like Florida. She likes to travel, drink wine, cook dinner parties, make jewelry, not the typical “old people” things.

So I wanted to make a cake that would suit her personality and incorporate things she likes to do. Because what is the point of making a specialty cake if you can’t make it special for the person you are giving it to?!

My mom likes swimming and is a former lifeguard and swim instructor. So I thought I could do a beach or pool themed cake. Since she enjoys reading, traveling and drinking wine, I wanted to incorporate those elements as well. The concept would be a person lying in the sun, near a beach or pool, with a bottle of wine and surrounded by books. To incorporate the travel concept I would include  travel books.

I started out with just the idea of a red and white striped towel, a classic beach pattern. Since the last time I tried to dye fondant red I looked like I had committed murder, I decided to BUY red fondant. I had also never tried to make a person or figure out of fondant, so to save some additional exasperation, I bought the “Wilton: Rolled Fondant Natural Colors Multi-pack.”  This helpful package comes with pre-colored pink flesh colored fondant as well as light and dark of brown and black. (and I knew it would save time and aggravation).

The first thing I did was create a base for the towel out of white fondant. Just a white rectangle. Then I rolled out the red and white fondant and, using my ribbon cutter, cut strips of each color. You could also use a pizza cutter or any cutting tool, but since I had the ribbon cutter and it makes keeps the lines consistent, I just used it. I then adhered the strips to the towel base, alternating the colors. And cut off the ends with a pizza cutter. Now, I am making this sound easier then it was. The red fondant bled color if I used too much liquid adherent. And then it cracked- for no reason. So I found myself pulling up some strips and using new ones, just to make it look decent.

For the wine bottle, I dyed a small amount of fondant green. Then I rolled it and shaped it into the form of a wine bottle. I left it to dry before adding other details. Later, after it was dry, I took a combination of white fondant and gum paste and rolled that out. I then cut it into a small rectangle that fit onto the wine bottle and adhered it with edible glue (combination water and gum arabic). Then, after THAT dried, I took edible markers and drew on the bottle’s label- featuring scribbles for writing and the faint image of hills.

The books were really easy, and the most fun. I just took white fondant, gum paste- whatever I had around- and shaped it into a rectangle. I then rolled out colored fondant to at least twice the width of the square and put the white square on top of it. I trimmed it to size and wrapped the color fondant around the white square, leaving the top, bottom and one side of the white fondant exposed. I took a toothpick and pressed lightly on one side to create the look of a book spine. I then used the toothpick to create lines on the white part to look like pages. Later when the books had dried, I used edible markers to write down book titles on the tops and spines. (I put titles like “Travel in France”, “Beaches of the World”, and “Just for Fun”.)

For the figure, I started by making a sunhat, just by shaping light brown fondant. I then took light blue fondant and shaped a top, and brown fondant to shape the pants. I added the appendages using the pre-colored flesh colored fondant and gum paste. (50/50 mix) The gum paste made it more pliable and let it set-up quicker. I made simple shoes using the black fondant and put them directly on the legs. For the head, I decided I would rather use an illusion then create an actual person’s head. So I shaped the outline of a head and used a round cutter jut to press in a semicircle for the mouth. For the hair I took some brown fondant and some yellow and mixed them together briefly, just so it would retain both colors, to look like highlights, rather than have just one color. I then used a toothpick to create some texture in the hair, by roughing in lines. Last I put the hat on top of the person’s head, as if they were blocking the sun.

For the cake, I made a basic two-layer yellow cake and filled it with chocolate butter cream frosting. Then I frosted the entire cake with vanilla butter cream frosting. (I actually ended up making four cakes, just so I could put them together to form a larger cake.)

To make a beach-themed cake you need two basic elements- Sand and Ocean.  For the sand, I took Nila wafers and put them in the food processor. Then I took the crumbs and just pressed them onto the frosted cake. (I know some people use crushed graham crackers but I think Nila wafers make lighter looking sand, plus my mom likes Nila wafers for nostalgic reasons.

closer view of the Nila wafer "sand", figure and books

For the ocean a started with the white frosting and created the line for foam. The I took some more white frosting and put some blue coloring. I didn’t mix it thoroughly so it still had some lighter and darker blue in it. Then I frosted that on the rest of the cake in wave-like patterns.

close up view of the "frosting ocean"

I added the elements on top of the cake. Then the last thing I did was create a 2 signs for the Cake out of gum paste (because it dries faster) and wrote on them with edible marker.  What could be a more appropriate saying for than, “Life’s A Beach When You’re Retired”

My mom LOVED the cake, as did everyone at the party. And what a great way to help her celebrate her long deserved retirement in a very personal way.