Pink Castle on a Mountain Cake

I was up until 4:30 on Friday morning decorating a cake for my friend Renee.  It was quite an experience for me, I learned a lot of new things.  The cake was from a Debbie Brown book (don't you love her books?).  Renee did not want the entire cake covered in fondant, so I used buttercream instead.  First  I made the flowers using the Wilton cut and punch, and cut them out of fondant.  For the rest of the accents I added a little bit of fondant to modelling chocolate.  For the caves I took some black and made a cave shape and pushed it into the mountain and had the thick buttercream overlap the cave some to add texture.   For the grass I took a lump of the chocolate mixture and using the biggest tip texturized the grass.  I used toothpicks to push the grass onto the mountain side and add a few more textures with the toothpick.  I made rocks leading up to the caves to look like steps and put rocks everywhere.  I took green dusting powder and added it to the grass and surrounding areas with a paintbrush.  I overlaid some of the areas and the rocks with yellow dusting powder.  I then added the flowers which had already been sprinkled with pink dusting powder.  I formed the castle with a rice krispie treat in the middle.  I took the modelling chocolate and formed the turrets out of dusty pink (pink with a little brown).  I added dark purple to make the tops of the turrets and then sprinkled it with more pink dusting powder.  I loved making this cake!  See the girls cakes section for more pictures of this cake.

Renee also wanted another one of Debbie Brown's cakes.  This one was a fun "marshmallow" castle.  Since she had already ordered the chocolate cake, this one we made entirely out of rice krispie treats.  I used the recipe for rice krispie treats and then shaped it together and smooshed it together, then chilled it in the fridge for a day or two.  Next time I will cut the top to make it more even.  I then took the pure modelling chocolate and covered the rice krispies with it.  Next time Lauren Kitchens said to roll out the white chocolate and chill it in the fridge for 10 minutes before putting it on the turrets to make it perfectly smooth.  I then used melted candy melts to attach the marshmallows and silver dragees and cut up pink marshmallows to make the door, windows and walkway.  I made very cute grass with yellow cotton candy and put marshmallow bunnies all over the front yard, but the humidity disentregated the cotton candy and made it look like moss.  I then attached mini-marshmallows around the board for a fence.  Yum!

Happy Birthday Brianna and Cassia!