Queen Of Paradise

You had so many wonderful entries that the longer I waited to start this, the more intimidating it was. However, it did help me choose "Queen of Paradise" as my cake, sticking to the tiny detailed obssessive kind of work I really enjoy. (The least enjoyable part of this was the actual baking, I prefer to stick to the decorating and eating of cakes.) I made 4 small round choc. cakes,filling them only with a firm buttercream for stability. After scratchcoating them, I used melted white chocolate for the torso of the Queen, and for the parrot and the stag. (It tastes a lot better than fondant or gumpaste do.) Using cake decorator markers, I then outlined them. I also piped some of the vines out of white chocolate, as well as the river leading from the rainbow to the stag. The circles and flowers I cut out of fondant and gum paste, and I covered the Queen's dress in fondant also. All of the flowers are glued on to it with white chocolate. There is a dowel running through the entire piece, to keep the tiers from sliding and to keep the Queen's body intact. I did have one "off with her head" moment, and should have photographed it, but was too busy freaking out. Fortunately,I had decided already to redo her face in buttercream, instead of just the decorator pen outline. After that, I painted some of the deco with silver Luster Dust(CLAIMS to be food safe), and blew some of their pearl powder on the lower half of the cake, avoiding her face so that it would stand out amid all the madness. From baking to completion (over the course of 3 days), this took about an hour an inch- The Queen of Paradise is a foot tall.
For a cake that is 3 days old by someone who does not bake all that well, with just plain buttercream on it, it is really good. Although if you had not made me cut it, I would have left it on the mantle till it melted or suffered an ant attack, it looked really nice there!