Moving Away Cake

This past weekend I said "farewell" to a dear friend.  My friend Sherri, a wedding coordinator in Chattanooga, is moving to Nashville, TN with her family due to her husband's job.

She had a big "See You Soon" party Friday at The Fairyland Club.  She called and asked me about ordering a cake.  I told her that she couldn't order one, but that I would gladly donate one for the party!

Since I had free reign on this project, I decided to start with a round cake covered in fondant.  I used edible pens to draw a map of the route from Chattanooga to Nashville.  I did this on the front and back sides of the cake and then covered the sides with some Chattanooga and Nashville edible images.

For the top, I decided to do a moving box.  I started with a square cake and Chaddy made up some cardboard colored modeling chocolate panels.  We made 2 top flaps and stuffed one side with mini marshmallows, which in context looked amazingly like packing peanuts.  I printed some "Fragile" and "This Side Up" labels on edible images and placed them on the box sides.  The last detail on the cake was to make packing tape marks.  I started by using painter's tape to mark off the tape lines and then painting a very thin coat of piping gel.  When I removed the painter's tape, it made the piping gel "tape" have nice clean lines.

It was a real hit at the party, and I smiled every time I heard a new guest walk in and say "Who put a box on top of the cake?!"  They had to get right up on it before they realized it WAS the cake!

Have a great weekend!  Anybody going to Charlotte this weekend for ICES??  Chaddy and I will be there - look us up!  We'll try to monitor our Twitter feed... use hashtag #ICES !!