Making an Optimus Prime Cake

A bunch of people have asked Jessica and I how we went about making that semi-famous Optimus Prime Cake of ours. This post should contain information on how to go about making one for yourself.

1. Optimus Prime toy measurements (Excel spreadsheet)
2. Reference pictures of Optimus Prime toy
3. Step by step instructions
4. Photo collection of the making our Optimus Prime cake

I hope this information will help any of you would-be Transformers bakers. Let me know if you need additional help and be sure to share any pictures if you attempt to make the cake!

My Transformers Collection

In order to build our Optimus Prime cake, I needed to go into our attic and get down my classic Transformers toys. We needed to see and measure the classic Generation 1 Optimus Prime toy as reference, and in order to get to him, I needed to get them all down.

So for the past couple of weeks, I've had my entire Transformers collection sitting around in my office just dying to be played with.

I figured it was a good time to document all of my stuff, and so I spent a day this past weekend cataloging them all with photos and video. I took tons of pics with at least 2 for each toy; once in robot mode with all their gear and once in vehicle mode.

I don't think I'll be putting any YouTube videos together, but I did post all of my stuff up on Flickr. Each toy is named, and funny anecdotal information that I could remember was thrown into the descriptions.

It's quite interesting seeing just how much Transformers stuff I actually have.

Transformers (2007)

Just got back from an 8pm showing of the new Michael Bay directed Transformers.

In a word, it was awesome. It was worth the wait.

Now I just got to determine when I'll go see it again.

Optimus Prime Cake: 2007

Last week I sent a link to Jessica about a Transformers cake that was coming to Wal-Mart. It was your standard grocery store sheet cake with a toy topper that was a real transforming Optimus Prime from the upcoming movie.

That link set the gears spinning to do our own Transformers cake. But instead we were going to not just do the topper. Oh no, instead the entire cake was going to be Optimus Prime. And he was going to be big.

So after baking 12 8x8 white cakes (9 of which were used), using 5lbs of white fondant, 6 cans of Color Spray, 3 batches of buttercream, 2 vials of silver dust mixed with vodka, and 2 very long days crafting this piece of edible art: we had ourselves our own Optimus Prime cake.



More details about the process are available in the Flickr set about the project, as well on my wife Jessica's blog.

In the end, it looks like we completed our goal and also made the 1984 cartoon variant of Optimus Prime quite happy.



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Optimus Prime Cake: 1984

My first try at a Transformers cake came back in December of 1984, almost 23 years ago. Using a simple sheet cake made straight from the box; all I needed was some white frosting, a little food coloring, and some colored gels to let my creativity fly.

All in all, I think it turned out well for someone who was 8, had no real experience and only used basic grocery store bought tools. In the end, it tasted good and that was all that really mattered.

10 Years on the Web

Ten years ago the very foundations of this site were built.

Using a Mac application called Claris HomePage, I built my very first web page called oddly enough, "Andy's Homepage". There were tons of self created animated GIF's, stupid pictures, and bits of dumb text. It was very ugly, but it was also hidden behind a FTP server for a few months while I cleaned it up.

Here we are ten years later, and some of the content is still available on this site today.

It's kinda crazy to think that I've been working on the web for more than a decade. Wow.

Five Great Years

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the day I was privileged enough to marry the love of my life Jessica.

These last five years have been great, and she is definitely a lovely lady whom I enjoy spending my time with.

I don't know of anyone else who would be a better match for me other than my wonderful wife.

5th Soda of Thanksgiving: Turkey and Gravy

First off, Happy Thanksgiving!

Secondly, today was the day when I drank the final bottle of soda from the Jones Holiday Pack of 2005: Turkey and Gravy Soda. I assumed it was appropriate to save the oddest and most memorable drink of the bunch for turkey day.

Following standard procedure, I first took a few sniffs of the orange hued carbonated liquid. As was the case with the others, this one didn't smell like I had expected. The scent was something along the lines of boiled carrots or some other musky vegetable.

The first taste was also somewhat surprising in that it actually tasted like turkey and gravy! It really did! Strangely enough, that flavor is what this drink most closely resembles. In addition, it didn't seem to have that sugar free taste that the others had. Had I not been full from dinner earlier, I would have finished the full bottle. The soda was easily the best tasting of the group.

So to rank the beverages, I would say they would fall into this order:

• Turkey and Gravy
• Cranberry
• Pumpkin Pie
• Brussels Sprout
• Wild Herb Stuffing

To be honest, I'm glad that the 2005 pack is done. There must be something to the expiration dates on soda, and especially on specialty ones like these. Hopefully the upcoming Jones Soda Holiday 2006 and Dessert packs I'm going to be drinking (and blogging) will fare better that these out-of-code beverages.

4th Soda of Thanksgiving: Pumpkin Pie

Just two bottles away from finishing off the Jones Holiday Pack from 2005. With just the two left, the final pre-turkey day beverage was the Jones Pumpkin Pie Soda.

I had higher hopes for this one over the Brussels Sprout and Wild Herb Stuffing drinks. I assumed that with it being dessert themed, it would actually be pleasant tasting and be more along the lines of the cranberry flavored one.

As I had done with the others, I first partook of the beverage's aroma. The scent definitely smelled like what manufactured pumpkin pie would smell like. Almost like a scented candle from this time of year.

The first sip led to the standard, "Ugh, sugar free" reaction. Nothing like trying to make something taste good by leaving out the sugar.

The flavor was bland and about as strong as I had expected. It was "pumpkiny", but nothing to really say this was made from pumpkins.

I've kind of come to the conclusion that for the majority of these holiday themed drinks; they simply carbonate the water, add some food coloring, and then add the essence of said flavor so at least your nose helps with the illusion. I'd imagine that if you couldn't smell or had a stuffy nose, these drinks would pretty much taste like diet seltzer.

3rd Soda of Thanksgiving: Wild Herb Stuffing

We're just a few days out of Thanksgiving, and I still have 3 more Jones sodas to drink. Today's drink of choice, Wild Herb Stuffing.

I must admit that the bottle looked quite pretty. The pale yellow hue of the liquid inside looked like it might taste somewhat decent.

Upon cracking the bottle cap, I was surprised to find that the aroma was shockingly sweet. I would have expected this scent from something that would be much more fruity. It almost smelled like a fruit punch of sorts, which was very odd.

"Maybe this one won't be as bad as I think it will..."

The first swig didn't taste like anything. Like it literally tasted like nothing other than seltzer water. No fruit taste or other taste to speak of. I took two more sips.

Then the after-taste hit.

What followed the first swallow was a taste far worse than the brussels sprout soda. Coating my entire tongue was a bitter taste of rotten and putrid herbs. It felt like someone had painted my entire tongue with crushed weeds. I instantly winced when the flavor appeared and ran to grab another drink. I quickly washed the bitterness away with some watered down Sprite.

All in all, it didn't take more than 3 sips of this particular soda to call it a day. It has be delegated to sit next to the previous bottles, where it is destined not to be finished.