Coolest Hollywood Movie Party Cake

by Shiloh Hand
(Camp Foster, Okinawa, Japan)

At one of the bases here in Okinawa, Japan has a small movie theatre available for rent. When my daughter heard about that she knew that her 8th Birthday party needed to be a Hollywood movie party. We rolled out the red carpet for her guests and had a paparazzi photo shoot on the way in to enjoy this cake before the movie. It’s about as simple as it gets…

• 1 Box cake of choice or your favorite recipe – enough to make 2 8 or 9 inch rounds.
• Your favorite frosting, any flavor (it won’t show).
• Gray tinted fondant
• 4 cake boards – 1 inch larger than cake
• Computer /printer
• Clear contact paper
• X-acto knife
• 8 or 9 inch round pans (2)
• Large rectangle cake board

1. The night before the party I found clip art of a movie reel and blew it to the size of my round cake boards.

2. Using my x-acto knife, I cut out the center openings on the print out of the movie reel and used it to stencil the shapes on 2 of my cake boards.

3. Using the x-acto knife I made the same cutouts on my stenciled cake boards.

4. After tinting my fondant gray, I rolled out 4 circles large enough to cover my 4 cake boards. I rolled them to maybe 1/8 inch thickness or a little thicker.

5. Next I covered all four cake boards and set them aside to dry until the next day. (Make sure to rub the fondant down a little in the cut out spaces to show definition on the reels. This should probably be done on wax paper to prevent sticking to the counter.) No one would be eating this fondant part, so I thought I would like it to be nice and dry.

6. Bake and cool cakes according to the package directions. Level and set to the side.

7. While your cakes are cooling you can make your personalized film strip. I found some clip art of an empty film strip and personalized it with an editing program on my computer.

8. I made enough film strip to wrap all the way around both cakes and connect them in the middle. Cut out the film strips and tape together on the back of the paper. Only the front of the cakes will be read, so make sure your personalization ends up in the center of your strip and not too long.

9. Cover taped together strip with contact paper to protect it from grease spots soaking through from the frosting when you apply it to the cake.

10. Place uncut fondant covered rounds as desired on your rectangular cake board.

11. Place leveled cakes centered on each board and frost.

12. Place shaped fondant covered cake boards centered on top of the cakes.

13. Wrap your film strip all the way around one cake and connect to wrap all the way around the second cake and… Voila!