I love surprises.

And I recently had the ultimate opportunity to partake in a cake surprise and make a 3-D camera cake!

I’ve always wanted to chance to make a camera cake, and I was very blessed when the cake stars aligned themselves to make this happen.

And this wasn’t going to be just any camera. My goal was to make it Tyler’s camera – the Nikon D300.

There were a lot of special personalized details in this cake – the teal retro camera strap, to the edible image on the back of the cake, to the figure of Tyler wearing one of his favorite Nixon watches.

Recreating the shape of the lens was the most tricky part because of two reasons:

1) The bottom of a cake that has been carved into a cylinder will sink down and collapse on itself and

2) The shape of a cylinder likes to roll around

To combat this, I cut apart several fondant buckets and pieced them together to form a shallow, rigid, bowl-shaped support. The bottom 1/3 of the cake lens sat inside this support. This was then securely attached to the cake board to prevent movement while decorating and transportation.

The shine of the lens was recreated by painting a thin layer of piping jelly on, which was then hand painted with white food coloring to give it some depth.

The cake was filled with chocolate cake with chocolate chunk vanilla icing. It was then hand carved and sculpted. Because of the short time frame I have to work with the cake, this became and overnight project.

The finished camera cake was rather large – it measured 11″ high and was 14″ at it’s widest point, could serve up to 50 people, and weighed at least 20 lbs. All that butter cream, icing, and fondant sure gets heavy once it all gets put together!

And I was extremely lucky to witness his surprise and excitement when he saw the cake!  I just had to take a picture of him taking a picture. Note that the matching outfit was not a coincidence. 😉

Happy Birthday Tyler!!!

To see a wonderful glimpse into his vision and passion, check out Tyler Kergen Photography.