Summer Wind

I love this tee shirt design because it is simple elegance. My challenge was to take such an elegant 2-D design and turn it in to a 3-D design. I had an idea in my head, and this is what happened:

The cake is a spice cake from scratch. The butter cream icing is almond flavored. Spice cake and almonds are such a great combination! I originally baked three layers of spice cake. Then I carved out smaller tiers to build up the cake more than three layers. I also torted each layer to get some height in the design.
To build the cake I stacked largest to smallest tiers. I used some skewers in order to have some support. I gave the cake a first layer of frosting to make the final coat of frosting as smooth as possible.
In order to keep the elegance of the design, I decided to frost the cake with tinted frosting (rather than use fondant). I think butter cream has more of an elegant effect. This turned out to be a journey in color! The blue started out more purple, then became a dark blue. I also spent time making the frosting as smooth as I possibly could--elegance!
Then I made the flowers and the woman's profile with her hair blowing in the wind. I used chocolate modeling clay for these two elements. Though the flowers are simple, it took a lot of time to mark the flowers, and mold the petals into pretty curves. The woman's profile started flat, but I realized I needed to add clay "hair" in order to make the design work.
After the frosting chilled in the refrigerator, I placed the flowers and woman's profile on the cake. In order to continue the pattern I also put flowers on the "back" side of the cake. Then I finished the cake with butter cream centers in the flowers.
This cake took me a full 12 hour day to create. I am so excited about this cake,and this design! I feel that the cake is elegant, as is the design on the tee shirt!
Friends came over for "cake night" and shared the spice cake. It was tasty!