Blooming

I am so excited to be entering this contest. I only started decorating cakes in March, but when I saw this contest I felt I had to attempt the challenge. When I was looking for a design for my Threadcakes entry I kept coming back to Blooming. I loved the look on the deer's face, and I thought that making the cherry blossoms would be a great chance to practice my newly acquired skill of making gum paste flowers.

I had to work around my one-year-old daughter's schedule, so it took me about 4 days to complete the cake, working while she slept. The first day I made the flowers out of gum paste tinted with fondant. That took me the whole evening.

The second day I made a template by tracing a computer print-out of the design and used it to cut the deer and birds out of fondant. I then painted them with gel colour diluted in vodka (this was when I discovered that black gel goes green when diluted, so I added red – which somehow gave me purple! A little moss green soon had me back to a brownish-colour I could live with.) As they were drying I put parchment paper over my computer print-out and traced the deer's antlers with melted dark chocolate and put them in the fridge to harden. I then used the chocolate to draw the details on the deer and birds.

On Day Three I baked an 8”x8” square chocolate scratch cake and cut out the white flowers for the deer's back. It was about then that I realized that it would have been much easier had I done the whole thing on a larger scale (a bit late for that!).

On the fourth day my mother-in-law took the baby so that I could have a few hours to finish up the cake. I iced the cake with almond buttercream (I had wanted to do cherry to compliment the design, but I couldn't get to the store that sold the cherry flavour in time). Then I covered it in white fondant and attached the deer, birds and antlers with gum glue. Next I painted on the deer's shadow and background blossoms (again with gel colour and vodka). Finally I attached the blossoms with melted chocolate and drew in the stamens.

This was my first time painting with gel-colours and my first time drawing with melted chocolate, but I think it turned out pretty well. It was tasty too – so much so that I had to share a piece with my daughter, who thoroughly enjoyed it as well - as you can see from the photos.