One of the greatest, grandest, and most labor intensive cakes that Melissa's Fine Pastries has ever executed was the Minas Tirith - Lord of the Rings cake. We were facinated by the challenge of creating a replica styled groom's cake of this magnitude, and the ideas escalated quickly. We attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to begin researching 3D printers. We heard faint whispers of chocolate and sugar printers, but these models were all in the very beginning stages. The trials began by printing molds and eventually lead to printing positives and creating molds out of food grade material. There are no Minas Tirith chocolate molds on the market...so we made our own. As you can see, this design called for extremely linear molds, and clear straight lines. We also used some architectural textures produced by "Hirst Arts", a fantasy architecture company, to create food grade silicone presses for our made from sugar stone walls and cobblestone streets. Our process continued to be very involved as we used CAD to draw shapes and determine every detail including window height, shadows, and dome shapes. We were able to purchase a model of Minas Tirith, that we used as a scaled image by measuring each detail with a toothpick and increasing that measurement by 7.2 - who knew mathematics were such an important part of baking a cake! We could not have been more pleased with the outcome, and we hope you are just as fascinated with this design as we've been!
Trailer by Studio Vieux Carre | Images by GK Photography | Planning by Sapphire Events
