White Chiffon Cake filled with Raspberry Buttercream

and covered with handpainted Vanilla Marshmallow

Fondant. All pieces are edible.

Happy 4th of July! I was lucky enough to deliver the cake posted above to a very pleased daughter. Her mom means the world to her and collects Muscial Jewelry Boxes so it was a given that her cake be the same thing.

Making this cake was trickier than you would think. It is 4 inches deep by 8 inches long by 6 inches high. This means the base is smaller than the height and whenever that comes into play you have to make your inside structure very stable to hold up the cake above or it will come toppling down or squish the cake below or both! For this type of design you have to make panels of fondant and then handpaint all of it once it is constructed. For this cake the top of the box is it's own little unfilled cake..enough for four. The bottom is a two layer filled cake topped with the buttercream "fabric" that you see poking out with the pearls. Inside the bottom cake is a set of dowels that sit up just a bit over the cake to hold up the top cake which has a cake board on the bottom of that so it can sit on the dowels and not the cake. Serving this cake is easy. Just remove the top cake, cut into four pieces and serve. Then with the bottom cake you would remove the dowels and simply slice it lengthwise down the center and then crosswise in 1 inch slices, giving you 1x2x4 inch pieces of cake. Perfect!

The fondant accent pieces have to be made a day or so in advance so they have time to dry a bit before placing on the cake. Most of them had to be painted with edible gold paint which also takes time to dry. So on "cake day" it's really a matter of covering the actual cake and then placing the dried/painted pieces onto the cake using a teeny bit of water as glue. I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

This week brings a special birthday cake for a friend of ours who is turning 40. Our gift to him is a very special 3D toolbox cake...can't wait for him to see it at his party!

Have a great 4th!

Cat