Beer bottle cake

I made this cake for Paul. He wasn't around for his birthday, so even though it is many months past his last birthday and a few until the next, I called it a birthday cake.

The cake itself was sort of a wreck. I made a chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream filling and chocolate frosting. I planned on making the cake look like a barrel, which required some carving. The cake was moist and didn't cooperate well, so I spent a lot of time messing with the carving and crumb coat. I was surprising Paul with the cake and he was getting ready to leave town, so I had to let go of the whole barrel idea (as well as a bottle label!) and just try to make the cake look somewhat decent and move on. This is the beauty of making a cake for a family member--they don't really care if the details are perfect, so it's a great opportunity to try out new techniques.

I made the sugar ice and bottle following the steps in this post. Since I didn't want the caramel color that sugar takes on when heated to the hard crack stage, I used isomalt to make the ice.

I made the beer bottle and lid with food grade silicone, molded around a bottle and left to cure. I heated the sugar-splenda-corn syrup mixture to the hard crack stage and added brown gel coloring, then poured it into the mold. Once it cools, the silicone slides right off of the sugar and it's ready to use.

So here's a picture of the cake--showing very little of the cake itself to spare my dignity!