Sublimation

Sublimation is when a substance changes directly from a solid state to a gas without going through the liquid phase. Yeah, I know, you wanted to read about a cake project, and you're stuck in a science class. Hang in there, it's a cool science lab day! Carbon dioxide (aka dry ice) sublimates easily here in our Earth's atmosphere. When water is added to dry ice, the process of sublimation is accelerated. When the process of accelerated sublimation is applied to cake, you get a smoldering volcano!

The boys had a blast helping me to get the perfect shot of the "smoke". We took probably 60 pictures, trying to get the lighting and wind drifts just right. Even the mom helped with the photo shoot when she came to pick it up. These are the three best shots, although none of these even come close to how cool it was to watch the "smoke" billowing out and dropping down the sides of the volcano.

It drops down rather than floating up like regular smoke because carbon dioxide is a heavy gas - still working on getting the science lesson here LOL.

Now I'm noticing that while I was working on getting a good angle for the smoke, it was a horrible angle for the rest of the cake. I promise, it wasn't really that wrinkly or lopsided in real life. It was a vanilla cake (including the volcano) with strawberry filling, iced in buttercream. The trees and lava were made from fondant. Yes, I totally cheated and used plastic dinosaurs this time. An extra crazy life this week didn't allow the time to make edible ones, plus now mom doesn't have to break up any fights about who gets to eat the stegosaurus. ; )