The Red Deer

I'm dedicating this cake to my Aunt Jean, who recently passed away. I chose this design because it looks calming, and my Aunt had a calming affect on me,and many others.

This is a tiramisu cake, as my Aunt introduced me to the cake years ago. The cake took a weekend to create (with breaks, of course). I made a genoise cake, a coffee mascarpone filling, and made vanilla buttercream frosting.

The design of the cake is three layers. You can see in the photographs: layer 1 has the moon, sky and mountains. I used shimmer dust (one of my new favorite toys)to add shimmer to the moon. The second layer is cut to a half cake, and has the shorter mountains, and the trees placed on top. I used chocolate modeling clay for the trees and small mountains. I placed them on top of the second iced tier. After placing the trees on top of the second tier, I added frosting leaves to match the design. The third layer is the deer. Again I added shimmer dust to the deer to add highlights. For the shadows on the deer I used cocoa powder. The final touches were the "bubbles" around and in the design. Some of the bubbles are clay bubbles, some of the bubbles are piped on to the design.

I invited friends over for "cake night", and the tiramisu received great reviews. As I tasted it I was reminded of the tiramisu my Aunt Jean shared with me all those years ago.