In my family, we talk, drink coffee, and play Scrabble. My mother is the best Scrabble player in the land, but she really thinks she isn't all that good. She'll throw you off, for sure, then swoop in and triple-word-score-with-an insane-8-letter-word your ass. And then be like "Fiddle-dee-dee, did I do that?" It's pretty awesome, really.
I've grown up in this environment, and have a deep and abiding love for the game, even though I don't get much chance to play these days, what with the kid and all. In those long summer bed-resting days back in '07 when we were waiting for Pookie's arrival, mom and I must have played hundreds of rounds, scored thousands of points, further cementing our bond with the little wooden tiles.
So of course it would eventually come to this.
Scrabble cake.
I decided that if I was going to do it, dammit, I was going to go all out. No half-assing this. It had to look like the real deal, and taste awesome too. So I made my own fondant (after coming to the realization that Wilton fondant is both expensive and repulsive), and set to work.
First I made the cutter and cut the 100 letter tiles. I made them brown, but didn't mix the coloring all the way, so it looked like wood grain.

Then I rolled out the fondant for the board. I learned a VERY helpful tip during this step: fondant can be tinted with your stand mixer, instead of through an hour of kneading dough and cursing. Also, I needed MORE fondant, so I had to stop in the middle of this step and make an additional batch (Having to stop put me back a day, so I made cookies that night instead. Squirrels!)
I eventually went from the picture on the left to the one on the right. There was a good deal of cursing (bad swears, too. Ones that are Not Acceptable in Scrabble.) during the gridding part. I can make octopus arms and owls and pumpkins with my eyes closed, but I cannot draw a straight line to save my life, much less 32 of them in a grid.
Seriously, it was really really hard for me. My poor husband took a break from his Wii football game to console me and gently warn about Pookie learning any new words in her sleep.
I got it right eventually. (Note that the GREAT VALUE bag of powdered sugar was somehow replaced in the 2nd photo by the singing fish, aka MOST ANNOYING TOY EVER. I want it to go away, and I've been trying unsuccesfully to get rid of it for over a year.)

So from there was the problem of makeing a cake that was 14 x 14, the size of the fondant. After some searching, I found the exact sized pan over the weekend at the Hobby Lobby (all hail the Hobby Lobby!). As cake pans go, it's a sight to behold. That's a LOT of cake batter. I must have used a gallon of Crisco to make sure the damn cake turned out cleanly. (I have no idea what to do with this giant pan now ...)
The Disney bus is for scale. That's an ACTUAL Disney bus. I had it brought in to assist in showing scale. Yes, Goofy really drives it.

So after that step, I had to remove the backing from the fondant (nerve-wracking!) and turn the cake back over and level it (ridiculous!), then apply the fondant topping to the thinly-iced cake (impossible!). That last step got messed up a bit, but it all worked out okay in the end.
Mom was pleased, the cake was cute and yummy, and all was well. (Well, it would have been better if I'd had a lazy susan to put it on that didn't turn very well and was super-jerky, like the ones under the real boards.)


