Ready to have you mind completely blown?
I’ve featured some terrific Optimus Prime cakes in the past, but nothing like this mindboggling cake. This Transformers cake talks and actually transforms!!! Watch the video, it is amazing.
This stunning cake was made by Russell Munro and his wife. On his blog, Russell has written a post explaining in great detail how he made this amazing cake transform.
It started off innocently enough, Russell’s son asked for a Transformers cake for his birthday. Russell had the wild idea of making a Transformer cake that actually transformed. He decided from the start that he didn’t want to build a machine and cover it in cake. He wanted the cake to be cake.
With this impossible challenge ahead of him, Russell began sketching out ideas while riding the train to and from work. After two months of brainstorming and sketching, Russell had enough worked out that he could begin modeling his idea in CAD software.
Have you ever seen those dolls that have wires in them? When you push the button underneath them, they fall down. When you let go of the button, they stand up again. That’s the basic idea behind Russell’s amazing transforming cake stand. There are small motors hidden in the cake stand that apply tension to wires and belts. If that isn’t space age enough for you, Russell had most of the parts of the cake stand 3-D printed with food safe materials.
The first few times I watched this video, I was so awestruck that I missed something crucial. The truck doesn’t just break into three pieces and stand up. The front cab also transforms. The two sides of the cab become Optimus Prime’s arms and his head pops up. To do this, the cake stand has multiple motors, wires, and belts. One set transforms the body and the other transforms the head. The timing of the motors and the playing of Optimus Prime’s speech was controlled by an Arduino Programmable Circuit Board.
Russell didn’t realize how heavy cake and fondant were, so a portion of the cab was replaced with Styrofoam and the fondant had to be extremely thin. Russell’s wife made the cake and had to simplify her original design because it would have weighed too much. As you saw in the video above, when showtime came, the cake was AMAZING!!! Both Russell and his wife deserve a round of applause.
Want to see the cake stand in action? Thankfully, Russell has posted two videos of the motorized cake stand.
This video shows the front of the cake stand in action without any cake.
This video shows the back of the cake stand in action.
