4-H Clover Cake... with Spahgetti (cake)!

I have been a 4-H member for many years now. My original club was a dog club, but eventually I just had enough with its rude leaders and a member. It wasn't long until I discovered a new dog club in need of some organization. Turns out, I went to school with all, except two, girls in the club. And the other two I hadn't met before were nice - unfortunately they needed to leave for college shortly after I joined. This left me in the position of president, as I was the most experienced (not saying this arrogantly) in the club at the time. Later on, I joined an insect club led by a friend of mine, but it wasn't long before I quit that one due to lack of communication.

Today, I'm still in the dog club, and we're much more organized than we were when I joined.

So here's where the cake comes in.


Recently the first annual 4-H family picnic was held for my county, which I, of course, attended. Technically, I was supposed to bring a salad according to the organized list I was sent, but as a cake decorator, I didn't feel like bringing a salad. At a Good Production Practices (basically just information telling you how to care for your animals) meeting, I asked Sherri, the program coordinator, if I could bring a cake since I was into cake decorating. She agreed, so I was on to making a cake!

My original idea for a 4-H cake before I even asked Sherri about it was to do a carved clover cake. For those of you who don't know, here is the 4-H clover:

 

You can see this would be a difficult task with the deep cuts and all, but I never realize that sort of thing until I'm actually doing it... I always see the finished product, and not how to do it.

 

I originally tried carving this with a chocolate cake recipe that was supposed to be great for carving. However, I couldn't touch it with the knife without it falling apart. So I used a white cake recipe instead, that was supposedly great for carving as well.

Luckily, this one was good for carving, and worked amazingly! I think the recipe should be called miracle cake, not carve-able white cake.

 

As I carved, I had a little section that I couldn't carve because the cake wasn't long enough. So I took the excess cake pieces, iced one side, attached it back to the cake, and perfecto! No more cut off clover.

 

Then I had the problem with covering it in fondant. I couldn't get the fondant into the deep cut areas, so I cut it and airbrushed it. Being a perfectionist, I wasn't completely happy, but it could have been much worse. I don't think anyone at the picnic realized it. Good enough for me!

 

Here's what I came up with:

 

 

The reason for the square cupcake with the code on it is because you can only have an official 4-H clover if it is the proper color green and has the 18 USC 707 code. Everyone thought that little detail was really neat. :)

 

I wasn't sure the 4-H clover cake would be enough to feed everyone, so I decided to do my signature spaghetti cake. No, it's not real spaghetti. It's icing! I made this in the usual "take-out" pan to make it more realistic. Here are some photos of it:

 

 

 

When I brought the cakes to the picnic, Sherri told me to put the cake on the dessert table. So I put down the clover cake and the spaghetti cake. She gave me a funny look and asked if I shouldn't put that on the food table. I started laughing and explained that it was a cake as well. Everyone definitely got a kick out of that one!