This cake was made for a guy named Frank Liddell.

Here’s the story: I get calls all the time from people who want Nordstrom cakes at Walmart prices. In fact, it’s rare that I get a call from someone who Googles me and is cool with spending over a grand on a cake. I pretty much expect most calls to end in “Well, that’s out of my budget!”

But sometimes it happens like this: Back in November, I got a call from a nice lady who’s in town for her brother’s birthday. She Googled for bakers, liked my website and thought I could make what she was looking for, which was a cake made to look like a recording studio mixing board.
Most people don’t know this but a decade ago I was a singer here in Nashville. I came close to having a record deal a couple times too! I know a few people in the music biz and I’ve been in some studios so I’m familiar with mixing boards. She began talking about having a Martin guitar, maybe some beer cans and, because her brother has won some awards, a CMA and an ACM award. “So, who is this cake for?” I ask. She says “My brother. His name is Frank Liddell and he’s a music producer. His wife is LeeAnne Womack.”
Okay, cool!
Then she says it’s for 100 people.
Oh lord. I know how much this is gonna cost. This is going to be someone else’s cake to make, I just know it.
I tell her what I’m envisioning for the cake and she’s getting excited and then I tell her how much it’s gonna cost.
She doesn’t blink an eye. “Sounds great! What do we do now?”
Excuse me while I pick myself up off of the floor.
We get all of the particulars nailed out, I make a sketch, she loves it. I start.

Oh, and she wanted ANOTHER cake, a Fred Flintstone cake for a smaller party (on the day before the BIG party), for around 20 people – with all of the Flintstone figurines.
No problem (don’t tell Hanna-Barbera).
(Frank and LeeAnne are known for their Halloween & Christmas parties in town and they love to dress it up on Halloween – he’s been Fred Flintstone and he’s the human embodiment of FF).
I made the Flintstones cake and it turned out so cute. I delivered it to Frank & LeeAnne’s house and they loved it. LeeAnne told me that Frank kept his Fred figurine in the refrigerator because he could bear to eat it.

The next day, I delivered the mixing board cake. I basically had an audience as I put all of the detail elements on the cake. I was so nervous! I was invited to stay for the party, not to cut and serve the cake but to enjoy myself and to meet their friends. Seriously, you couldn’t meet sweeter people. And I got to see several of my old music friends from back in the day. I pressed the flesh with more powerful music business people than most people get to in a lifetime. They were astonished that the cake was actually cake. I sometimes find it hard to believe that these people don’t see sugar art on a regular basis, what with all the shin-digs they attend!

When they had Frank come over to blow his candle out, they asked me to come forward to thank me for creating the cake. I felt like I had won an award :)

And, when I left, Frank’s sister chased after me to press a wad of bills into my hand. I never get tips from my clients. I try to disappear as soon as I deliver a cake. But she wanted to hug & thank me before I left.
When I got home, I took the money out of my pocket. I cried because of their generosity.

As I’ve posted before, I’m incredibly fortunate to be in this town, to make the art I get to make and to meet the fantastic people I get to meet. I had the time of my life!

The cake is basically three half sheets, stacked and carved to represent a section of a mixing board. The entire board is hand painted and the knobs and sliders are gum paste. If you look close, you can see which channel is turned up the loudest: Cowbell (from the SNL skit with Christopher Walken :)). The ACM/CMA awards and the Miller Lite beer can are made with RKT, covered in modeling chocolate, airbrushed & hand-painted (I used an icing sheet for the beer can). The JD bottles are sugar, made with the help from a Marvelous Molds kit and icing sheets. The Martin guitar headstock is made from modeling chocolate and painted pasta. The “tracking sheet” is an icing sheet with all of the artists that Frank produces listed on the track squares as well as a “coffee stain”.

This was so long but I wanted to share the fun story behind it.
Thanks so much for reading all of this!