Star Trek with a Twist

July Birthday #3 was for my 17-year-old brother-in-law (again with the hyphens!). He is a Star Trek fan, although not as intense as my husband (you know it's true, Derek!). I had the idea to do a tie-dye style cake, so I thought I could easily incorporate the Star Trek logo into it. The result wasn't quite what I had imagined, but still rather cool.

Cake: Funfetti filled with cooked, flour-based vanilla custard.

Frosting/Decoration: Plain vanilla frosting mixed with the three famous Star Trek colors: blue, red and gold. I wish I would have made the yellow look a bit darker and mixed with some orange. As is, it looked a bit like a Captain America cake. But the Star Trek logo surely put away any doubts to that effect. The tie-dye effect was done by layering the colors around a central design and expanding outward, repeating until the whole cake was full. I learned this method when I was in third-grade art class. I used paintbrushes to make the logo smooth and more precise. This was my first paintbrush attempt on a cake and I was very pleased!