3D 2nd place
My Foolish Heart
by Leslie Vigil · submitted Dec 20, 2016 · 2016 contest
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Description
"My Foolish Heart" will be my second year's entry to Threadcakes. I chose to fully push my own cake boundaries this year by selecting a design that would challenge all my current abilities with structure, cake sculpture, painting, and various kinds of sugar work using fondant, modeling chocolate, and sugar paste. "My Foolish Heart" was a design that I wholly gravitated towards for many reasons: my love for all things botanical, my fascination for specimen chart illustrations, and my special relationship to butterflies... specifically one particular black butterfly, whom I intentionally chose to feature in the recreation of this design. The story behind the black butterfly may be far too detailed to explain here, but his placement on the heart was my way of making this entire project that much more personal to me. :)
I began the project on my weekend and over the course of two days I rolled, cut, wired textured and dried the leaves, flower centers, and petals. For the flower centers, I rolled them in cornmeal to create a "pollen" like look. I also printed images of the butterflies onto edible photo paper then backed them with sugar paste for structure and allowed them to dry on straws for an "in flight" appearance. Once the flowers and leaves dried, i dusted them all with colored petal dust for shading and depth.
On day two, I made a batch of modeling chocolate and baked the three 6" round chocolate cakes for use the following day. The choice of using chocolate cake was pretty much a given for me, as I am a chocolate lover. That being said, I'm pretty certain that if I were to be dissected, the contents of my insides would be mainly chocolate.
Day three, I put together the structure for the cake using two cake boards, wooden dowel, and 1/2" thick foam core board threaded through the dowel then wrapped the structure with cellophane so the cake would be protected from the hot glue i used to help attach the foam core to the dowel. Then came the cutting, threading, and layering of the cake and vanilla buttercream. A few layers in, i inserted boba straws and threaded a thin cake board to prevent the remaining layers of cake and buttercream from sagging. Once the desired height was achieved, i used a serrated knife to sculpt the cake into the heart shape; also adding and sculpting a cupcake at the base of the heart. After a layer of vanilla buttercream was applied i then allowed the entire cake to chill in the fridge. Meanwhile, I kneaded the modeling chocolate.
Once the cake was chilled, I began to add some of the arteries with the modeling chocolate and marked where others would be placed later. I then covered the cake in a layer of fondant. From there I added more arteries of modeling chocolate covered with fondant and anchored them in with candy sticks. Using my Sugarworks tools, I both added and enhanced the crevices of the heart and marked where i would lay the fondant veins. The veins were individually rolled then applied with the help of an X-acto blade.
Day four was all about adding color and depth to the heart. First, I applied the red airbrush color, leaving some spaces strategically bare for highlight. Next, using a tiny detail paintbrush, I painted the veins and insides of the arteries using Sweet Sticks Edible Art Paint in red as it was the perfect deep shade I needed. More scoring and texture was added to the overall heart to mimic the sketch-like element of the "My Foolish Heart" design. The board was then finished off with a covering of white fondant.
On day five, the final details were added including: fondant dots adhered to floral wire with identification letters as well as the specimen label painted with edible marker and the Edible Art Paint, the arrangement of the completed leaves and flowers, and lastly, the butterflies!
All and all, the complete project took somewhere between 16-18 hours. The destruction and consumption however... gone in a heart beat
I began the project on my weekend and over the course of two days I rolled, cut, wired textured and dried the leaves, flower centers, and petals. For the flower centers, I rolled them in cornmeal to create a "pollen" like look. I also printed images of the butterflies onto edible photo paper then backed them with sugar paste for structure and allowed them to dry on straws for an "in flight" appearance. Once the flowers and leaves dried, i dusted them all with colored petal dust for shading and depth.
On day two, I made a batch of modeling chocolate and baked the three 6" round chocolate cakes for use the following day. The choice of using chocolate cake was pretty much a given for me, as I am a chocolate lover. That being said, I'm pretty certain that if I were to be dissected, the contents of my insides would be mainly chocolate.
Day three, I put together the structure for the cake using two cake boards, wooden dowel, and 1/2" thick foam core board threaded through the dowel then wrapped the structure with cellophane so the cake would be protected from the hot glue i used to help attach the foam core to the dowel. Then came the cutting, threading, and layering of the cake and vanilla buttercream. A few layers in, i inserted boba straws and threaded a thin cake board to prevent the remaining layers of cake and buttercream from sagging. Once the desired height was achieved, i used a serrated knife to sculpt the cake into the heart shape; also adding and sculpting a cupcake at the base of the heart. After a layer of vanilla buttercream was applied i then allowed the entire cake to chill in the fridge. Meanwhile, I kneaded the modeling chocolate.
Once the cake was chilled, I began to add some of the arteries with the modeling chocolate and marked where others would be placed later. I then covered the cake in a layer of fondant. From there I added more arteries of modeling chocolate covered with fondant and anchored them in with candy sticks. Using my Sugarworks tools, I both added and enhanced the crevices of the heart and marked where i would lay the fondant veins. The veins were individually rolled then applied with the help of an X-acto blade.
Day four was all about adding color and depth to the heart. First, I applied the red airbrush color, leaving some spaces strategically bare for highlight. Next, using a tiny detail paintbrush, I painted the veins and insides of the arteries using Sweet Sticks Edible Art Paint in red as it was the perfect deep shade I needed. More scoring and texture was added to the overall heart to mimic the sketch-like element of the "My Foolish Heart" design. The board was then finished off with a covering of white fondant.
On day five, the final details were added including: fondant dots adhered to floral wire with identification letters as well as the specimen label painted with edible marker and the Edible Art Paint, the arrangement of the completed leaves and flowers, and lastly, the butterflies!
All and all, the complete project took somewhere between 16-18 hours. The destruction and consumption however... gone in a heart beat
