(Above) This cake replica of Marina City is 25 inches tall and took 16 hours to create. It was made for Clarence Ekstrom, age 90, a former project manager for McHugh Construction who helped build Marina City. (Below) Detail of the cake shows the U.S.S. San Diego, a highly decorated light cruiser Ekstrom served on during World War II. (Click on either image to view larger version.)

April 13, 2010 – If you have ever wondered what Marina City would look like depicted in Chocolate Bourbon Cake with alternating layers of Raspberry Buttercream and Chocolate Truffle Ganache, this is your lucky day.

This 25-inch-tall (including the numbers) cake was created by Laura Springfield, Paris Levin, and Amy Beck of Amy Beck Cake Design. It took about 16 hours to make, according to Beck.

“The cake portion was the base of the cake, made to look like the landscape that surrounds Marina City,” she explains. “The cake was covered in fondant and the little trees and planters were also fondant with royal icing piping to make the trees and bushes look more realistic.”

Fondant is the cream confection you see in cakes, pastries, and other sweets. The towers were carved from Styrofoam and covered with fondant to look like cake. Miniature fondant balconies were added, one at a time, and lastly the parking structure – one long piece of fondant – was wrapped around each tower to make it look like a spiral parking ramp.

The cake was commissioned for the 90th birthday party of Clarence Ekstrom. We will have much more about Clarence shortly, but for now we wanted to show you his birthday cake. Clarence was the project manager for McHugh Construction when the company was building Marina City in the early 1960s.

 Web site: Amy Beck Cake Design