Loch Ness Imposter

I had considered entering Threadcakes this year, but didn't think I had the time or a free weekend to commit to working on a really exciting cake. Instead, during a 10:00 meeting on a Tuesday morning, I decided to make one for an office party at noon the next day. Short on time, I kept it simple and chose a design that I found charming and hilarious, Loch Ness Imposter.

I chose to make the cake delicious as much as it would be creative. This meant not running to the store for fondant or making it myself like last year. I opted for just buttercream and a hand painting technique that would leave an oil painting type look.

I started with three layers of yellow cake, filled them with apricot preserves and topped them off with a slightly odd color of lemon vanilla buttercream. Once iced and smoothed out as well as possible, I started the hand painting. I used the remainder of the blue/green buttercream and tinted it two different darker shades for the tentacles at different depths. I made the Loch Ness head out of marzipan tinted black with a piece of dried linguini to support it in the cake.

The cake made a welcome appearance at the office party where it was devoured very quickly.