Chocolate Sheet Cake

My mother-in-law asked me to make a Very Hungry Caterpillar cake for my cousin's baby shower.  I was very excited to be asked, but of course terrified of messing up!  For several reasons:
1.  Google Very Hungry Caterpillar cakes and you will see the good, the bad, and the UGLY.
2.  I've never made a sheet cake larger than 9x13 before.
3. A baby shower cake is a lot of pressure
4.  My favorite chocolate cake recipe loves to fall apart.
5.  Would I decorate using 1,000,000,000 different colors or use fondant?
6.  How do you transport a cake that size?

I spent a lot of time researching recipes and tips and tricks for large cakes.  I thought about trying different techniques with my favorite chocolate cake, but wanted to be safe.  I decided to make King Arthur Flour's Favorite Fudge Cake.

To ensure the cake would successful be removed from the pan, I not only greased and floured the pan, but I also used parchment paper.  Then I greased and floured the pan again.  I was baking the cake in a 12x18" cake pan that is 3" deep.  I started by doubling the recipe since makes a 9x13.  After seeing what that amount of batter looked like, I decided to make one more batch (so yes, I ended up tripling the recipe for a 12 x 18" pan).

Having read other blogs and baking forums, I decided to bake the cake at 325, instead of 350.  I debated about using the flower nails or Wilton's Bake Even Strips, but I decided not to use either.  The batter was very easy and quick to prepare.  However, I ended up baking the cake for over 1.5 hours!!!

Please look at large this cake is in comparison to my tiny oven!

I thought the edges/ center were interesting.  The cake was cooked the whole way through!

Phew!  My large cooling rack helped!

Anyway after allowing the cake to cool for 10 minutes and saying a big, long prayer that cake came out of the pan effortlessly and yes, in tack!

This morning I woke up super early to get decorating! I was going to have my husband cut a piece of plywood to fit in my large cake carrier.  However, he was sound asleep.  What did I do?  I cut a piece of drywall to fit the cake carrier using an utility knife and wrapped it in aluminum foil.  It worked quite well!

I ended up using my Decorator's frosting, instead of my classic buttercream.

First, but on a light crumb coat.

Then,  allow the crumb coat to dry.  During this time I decided to get to work on my fondant.  I cut out my shapes by hand and used the book to guide me.

Once, I had a general feel for my fondant caterpillar, I frosted my cake.  A trick a learned in a cake decorating class is to use Viva Paper towels to smooth the cake.  Viva isn't textured.  I have even decided to use the fondant smoother to help "iron" out the frosting.

Ironing out the frosting

The "bottom" of the cake has been smoothed out.  See the difference?

I used gumballs for the border.

Then I put out my caterpillar.  I made a cute little strawberry for the caterpillar to eat!

                               

I used the Wilton candy pens to add a face to my sun and dots to the strawberry. To accent the blue gumballs, I decided to write the Congratulations to the Mommy to be in blue.

Here's the finished product:

What do you think?