Daisy

Keep it clean?!...how on earth are we supposed to keep our cake baking stories clean? Sheesh, go on and take all the fun out of it, why dontchya....

I'm joking, of course! Although my story does start with one charming man; Duff Goldman. His new line of cake-related items caught my eye at Michael's and before I knew it, I was walking out with his chocolate cake mix (I wasn't quite charmed enough for the $20 buttercream fondant. Maybe next time).

In an attempt to recreate the Chocolate Blackberry Cake I spied on a favorite foodie blog, I combined the mix with hand-picked black raspberries for two fudgy layers, separated by black raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream.

But enough about the flavors, which, of course, don't matter in this arena! I chose the "Daisy" shirt as the summery inspiration for my first experience with fondant. Also, I wanted an excuse to use edible spray paint.

After covering my dark, delectable cake with pristine white fondant, I cut out sunflower petals of all sizes. They were sprayed yellow, streaked with a black food pen as well as melted chocolate. Ganache served as the center of my tempting daisy, with added chocolate chips just to up the "fun" factor.

Finally, I decided to sprinkle everything with edible gold dust. Because sparkles make everything better.

I gawked at all the beautiful entries when I made a Threadcake last time, and I've done the same this summer; I don't expect to beat those beauties. But I hope my little Daisy brings joy to someone out there. Not least of all, to those of us who ate reduced it to a plate of crumbs. Yum!