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This cake will satisfy even the biggest sweet tooth
 BY MICHAELA SAUNDERS
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Last time, Omaha's birthday cake was made of wood.
This time, it will be marble.
On Sunday afternoon, more than 39,000 slices of marble sheet cake will
be served at the Qwest Center Omaha in celebration of the city's 150th
birthday.
In 1954, a gargantuan birthday cake of wood and papier-maché was
displayed at Turner Park.
"There were 100 candles on it," said Bill Kratville, publicity chairman
for the city's centennial events.
No edible cake was served at the festivities. The wooden cake was set
up near a performance stage in the park near 30th and Dodge Streets.
Its electric candles were illuminated and there were local cultural
performances each night for a week.
This time, the sole performance will be by Opera Omaha, which will sing
the city "Happy Birthday" at 1 p.m.
The line for a piece of the mammoth cake, which will be served from 1
p.m. to 5 p.m., will be an event on its own.
Omahans will go up one escalator inside the Qwest Center to a landing
where they can catch an aerial glimpse of the 30-foot-by-45-foot cake
before coming down another escalator to receive their slice.
It would be impossible to actually bake a cake as enormous as this one,
said Brian Moon, a Council Bluffs Hy-Vee store director.
Instead, about 450 full sheet cakes will arrive frozen on Saturday
morning, said Don Wilkens, director of bakery operations for Hy-Vee.
"I think it's going to be fun," said Wilkens, who will travel with
others from Hy-Vee's West Des Moines corporate offices to help assemble
the cake.
More than 24 hours before the tremendous treat is served, a large crew
of Hy-Vee cake decorators will go to work. First, the cakes will be
placed together on top of tables wrapped in wax paper. Then, the
decorators will use 2,300 pounds of white frosting to ice the big cake.
It will take 20 people a total of 266 hours to prepare the cake.
Their biggest challenge will be to put a seven-foot version of the
"Omaha 150!" logo on the cake. Moon said organizers hope the logo's
candle will actually be lit on Sunday.
Joel Fossum, an Omaha area sales manager for Rich Products, a bakery
supplier who is co-sponsoring the cake with Hy-Vee and the Qwest
Center, said he is looking forward to the challenge.
"I've assisted with large cake projects in the past," he said, "but
this is by far the largest."
Moon says it is unlikely that the entire cake will be eaten Sunday.
Leftovers will be donated, in quarter-sheet boxes, to area food banks
and shelters.
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