Hawaiian Bridal Shower cake

It was fun to break out of the birthday cake scene for a bit and make a bridal shower cake.  It was a Hawaiian themed event with pink & orange as the color combinations.  I was shown an inspiration photo but it was of a 3 tiered cake and much more elaborate than was needed so I improvised.  I decided to do a tall stacked cake for dramatic effect and use the hibiscus flower for theme.  I had never made them before but I like the way they turned out.  I find it relaxing to sit down at the kitchen counter, turn on the tv and create flowers and other gum paste decor. 

 

 

It's always a bit stressful though when I start pulling all the details together.  It's a lot like remodeling, it gets really messy and for a while looks like nothing is really going to work.  But you just have to keep going and wait until the final reveal and it proves that it blends perfectly just like you planned.  Edible glitter always helps to make the final product spring to life too! 

I feel that when you are trying to decide what flavor to make a cake, it's good to think of your favorite cookie or candy bar.  Companies spend a lot of money on researching flavor combinations for those products so why not utilize their findings for cake.  The combination for this cake was a "twix" inspired flavor.  I used a sweet yellow cake that was moist and soft, yet strong enough to hold its own up against the caramel and chocolate that was added in the middle. Sometimes I get nervous that it will taste as good as it looks - but not this time.  I "had" to test the flavors out with the cut off scraps of cake and feed some to Craig too just to be sure.  We both could have eaten much bigger pieces!  Each part - caramel, chocolate & cake - was strong in flavor on its own and together melded in to creamy, melt in your mouth combination that was decadent but not too sweet.  In the words of Jim Carey in "Bruce Almighty" - it's gooood!  To keep everything cohesive, I used a caramel buttercream; a little in each layer for stability and all around the outside. 

 

 

 

For the base I like to cover the board in fondant and give it some decoration too.  I made a hibiscus flower boarder on it and originally had planned to keep it white.  I kind of got into the mode of "should I stop or keep going" when I was working on it.  That was the time frame during the stressful middle of it coming together that I'm really good at doing to myself.  I'm not sure it came out exactly as I was seeing it in my head, but I think it all pulled together.  The white, even though it would have been glittered, would have been too stark of a contrast to the bold colors of the cake.  All in all, I was pleased with it and so was the friend who picked it up for the shower and that's what really matters!