Sew Fabulous! 40th Birthday Cake

I admit that this was not at all what the client ordered. But when the client is your good friend's husband and he wants a "over the hill" cake for his wife, and his wife was in your wedding, and said husband says "I trust you", then this is what happens. I couldn't, in good conscience, put black fondant on this cake. (Sorry Russ!) But I did like the end result. The dress form was actually my husband's idea, and I thought it was adorable. The birthday girl is an excellent seamstress, and I thought a "Forty and Fabulous" theme would be more fun with some sewing-related details. So I baked the cake (cookies and cream with chocolate filling) and covered it with vanilla butter cream. Then, instead of the usual cover of fondant, I decided to make a "quilt" out of fondant squares which I textured with some cool, fabric-like texture plates. I added "yarn knots" by piping white icing at all the quilt piece corners. Then I created some fondant details (roses, measuring tape, bobbin spools) to add to the base cake. The crown jewels of the fondant details were the little silver high heeled shoes (because every fabulous woman needs a hot pair of shoes!) I made the shoes from a little cookie cutter kit that I bought at the ICES convention over the summer. Then, on to the dress form! I actually started with rice crispy treats and molded them into a bodice. Then I spread on some frosting to act like glue and covered the form with white fondant. Since this was my first foray into cereal treat molding, I discovered some valuable lessons here. The white layer of fondant was really lumpy and looked like something like a botched liposuction job (not so fabulous). So then I rolled out some purple fondant and gave it a pretty texture, and created a dress. The second lesson I learned was that no matter how many episodes of Project Runway I watch, I am NO fashion designer. That is just hard, whether working with fabric or fondant! I finished my sugar dress with some silver roses on the shoulder and a silver ruffle at the bottom. The last touch was the birthday banner for my forty and fabulous friend! Hope it was a great birthday and a delicious treat! Love you!