Monday, January 3, 2011

What is a Terrible Towel?

Sometimes I learn something new because of a cake request. For example I now know what a Terrible Towel is. It is associated with the Pittsburgh Steelers football team and was created in 1975 by radio broadcaster Myron Cope.  In 1996, Cope gave the rights to The Terrible Towel to the Allegheny Valley School in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. The school provides care for more than 900 people with mental retardation and physical disabilities. Proceeds from the Terrible Towel have helped raise more than $3 million for the school.  Thank you Wikipedia.  But that's enough sports trivia for today...on to the cake.

Hunter wanted a Terrible Towel for his birthday.  Now a towel is a pretty easy thing to make.  The design ON the towel maybe not so much.  How was I going to do this and make it look right?  I decided to print out the logo of the terrible towel in the size I needed.  I rolled out some black fondant, placed the printout over the fondant and traced over the design with an exacto knife.  Time consuming but I think it turned out pretty cool.  When the lettering was "pressed" onto the cake it took on a puffy appearance (exactly what I was going for).  The rest of the design was fondant with buttercream piped lettering.  Now if I could just work on getting those square corners straighter, ugh.

20101209 terrible towel
Happy Birthday Hunter!

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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 3, 2011 at 11:23 AM

    I would love to know what color icing you used for the yellow? How did you get it the right shade? Great cake. Go Steelers!

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  2. LisaFebruary 4, 2011 at 11:55 AM

    I started with peanut butter frosting and used Wilton lemon yellow. The color of the peanut butter frosting toned down the brightness of the lemon yellow quite a bit. I did add a small amount of Wilton buttercup yellow at then end to get it a little more mustard color. Sorry I didn't measure. Hope that helps and good luck!

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  3. ChrissyFebruary 5, 2011 at 11:29 AM

    Thanks for writing back! I'm just getting into cake decorating, so fondant and piping are all new to me. I'm trying to make this cake for the Superbowl tomorrow. I already had the lemon yellow icing color, so all I need is the buttercup. Peanut butter frosting is a great idea. Thanks again!

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