Make Art Not War

I had a hard time this year deciding on a design. After much deliberation I settled on this one. I liked the colours and imagery of this piece.
The process started with the baking – I made two marbled choc-vanilla sheet cakes and then cut them into ~ 7” squares. I stacked the layers into a tower with vanilla buttercream or chocolate ganache in between the layers (I switched to buttercream because it gave me a bit more height and was not so intensely rich in flavour). I then carved out the koi and rounded off the edges. I used only two cake boards for support in between layers, as I was not sure if the koi part would hold on its own against gravity. Also, I used sucker sticks as dowels to support the boards. The cake was covered in chocolate ganache and then covered in a layer of white fondant.

I then made the figures out of fondant with a bit of CMC powder added to help it stay firm. For some parts I used modeling chocolate, such as the fish fins, because it could be rolled out nice and thin. I used coloured fondant for the clothes and then painted on details using food colour gels/paste/powder mixed with vodka. The koi was painted onto the fondant the same way.

For the water effect that surrounded the top and sides of the piece, I roughly cut out the shape in 3 pieces of fondant rolled thin, which I left overnight to firm a bit – no CMC added. I "glued" these on with water and then added a few pieces of white modeling chocolate in between. The figures and flowers were also attached with water.

I took the cake to work where it was happily hacked into!

Oh, it took me ~ 3 days but I didn't work on it non-stop as life tends to get in the way.