Life and Death Ver 02 Guys Pima Pocket Tee

Since the deadline was extended, why not do another cake, right? This is my second year entering Threadcakes, and my second entry this year. I chose this design because I thought it would be cool to hand paint half of it and make fondant flowers and leaves for the other half. I also wanted to try my hand at converting a monochromatic cake to a color cake. :)

I start with a chocolate quarter sheet cake that I baked, and cut it into the shape of the deer using a template I printed out. I then covered the cake in salted caramel Italian meringue buttercream (my favorite) and popped it in the fridge to harden up. Then I made leaves using multiple small leaf cutters (maple, Japanese maple, oak, etc) and sugar shapers to vein them. I used three different flower cutters to create the multiple different flowers. I found butterfly templates online, sized them appropriately, and then printed them out on wafer paper. Then I cut them all out by hand.

I removed the cake from the fridge and covered it in white fondant. I then imprinted the skeleton design into the cake and airbrushed the back half green (in case any cake happened to show through my leaves and flowers). I then blocked out the skeleton with black food coloring and alcohol. When it was mostly blocked out, I used royal icing to adhere everything to the back half of the cake. I placed a coat of leaves over the entire half and then inserted flowers. Butterflies went on last.

After the leaves and flowers were attached, I added the detail to the bones using a black edible food marker. The last step of this cake was drawing out the antlers on the fondant covered board and detailing with the edible black food color.

Overall I really like the way it turned out :)