Cater-Cake

I've been fortunate enough to be working with The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art up in Amherst, MA, and during this year's Carle Honors, I helped the Planning Committee design a cake for not only the American Icon's 80th birthday, but for The Very Hungry Caterpillar's 40th birthday as well. This is a one-of-a-kind museum and if you ever get a chance to visit (and, like me, appreciate children's book illustration), you'll be blown away.

The design had to be simple enough to embody the essence of the book's hero, but angled in such a way that a large number of audience members could see it from a good distance. So what better an angled device to use but a large leaf. As it turns out, it was an ideal visual from the book as well...but the key was getting TLC's Cake Boss, from Carlo's Bakery in Hoboken, NJ, to help not only get this cake made but to literally make it come to life.

Here is how it looked in progress at the bakery itself.

And here was the final result.

I swear I saw the darn thing blink once!

The final cake was happily donated to a middle school whereupon up to 600 adoring fans of the caterpillar excitedly devoured every last bite. We'd like to thank Eric for kindly donating the cake, and Carlo's Bakery for helping make such an unforgettable, if not digestible, creation for Eric's birthday.