Lime is the New Black

Or something like that.

This cake was made for my little sister's best friend. They've known each other since kindergarten and this fall they are starting high school together. Go ahead: aaawwwww.

On to the cake. Morgan's favorite colors are lime green and black. Well, if you've known her long enough, that's obvious. :-) So, lime green and black it is.

You remember the cornelli lace and roses cake, don't you? That was the cake's inspiration. Also inspiring Mogan's cake is a skirt that she owns. I don't know how much of that skirt actually influenced the cake since I never actually saw it but it was described to me, and it had black flowers on it. I think that counts. I am forever indebted to sandralita, however, over at CakeCentral because she created a gorgeous dummy wedding cake which inspired me, if not Morgan (although I think she liked the design, too). If you have a CakeCentral account, you can see the cake that I'm talking about here. If you don't have an account, a) get one, and b) I'll describe it to you: The cake had 3 tiers, all white, and was covered in gorgeous black fondant flowers with ribbons and bows along the bottom of each tier, also black. Her flowers make mine look wimpy, and it's not just because of size.

For some reason, this cake was a pain in the butt to work on. Not that that's Morgan's fault. Totally was my bad. For one thing, I couldn't remember if I put 2 cups or 3 in the cake batter and that really freaks me out. Hopefully it was two. Then the cake, for some strange reason (maybe I did put in too much sugar) cooked too much out the outer edge and not enough in the middle of cake, but not the very middle because I had a flower nail stuck in there. Does that make sense? What doesn't make sense is that the cake overbaked around the edges and I had to cut that part off. :(

Then, the icing. Sigh. I made the chocolate fondant, first, while watching Jon and Kate Plus 8 (Isn't it funny how you can remember stuff like that? Like, I remember watching Drake & Josh when I first made petit fours, and I was watching Holes when I finished knitting my first hat. Ok, anyway.) Marshmallow fondant is a big mess to make. I'll have to post the recipe later. My family thought I was crazy, though, for playing with melted marshmallows, baking chocolate, and sugar. Lots, and lots of sugar. The buttercream behaved. Surprisingly enough. (Also surprising, aside from the fondant, I made the entire cake, from baking, to decorating, on the same day.  And with a trip to JC Penney's Outlet and ValuCity in between!)  Although when I finished with the white icing, I turned all the leftovers green, which ended up being bad. More about that later.

There were relatively few crumbs, and that was without a crumb coat! What crumbs there were, were hidden behind the fondant ribbon. :) The fondant, once turned black with a large about of black icing paste (turning my hand and fingers black, but then they faded to purple after I washed them... it still there somewhat too), did not want to cooperate, and it was much too dry. Adding water made it too sticky, and shortening didn't help, and... maybe I was just having an off day... The flowers, made with gumpaste cutters, turned out really cool. I added the words next. It looks lime green, doesn't it? I was afraid that it wouldn't. When I asked my little brother (who was alas the only one around) what shade of green he thought it looked like, he just shrugged and said "like the grass on my Puerto Rico cake," which is totally not true because I added more yellow to this shade. Whatever.

The shell border around the words was done with Betty Crocker icing! Okay, okay, pick your jaw up off the floor. It's not that big of a shock... is it? But I vow right now, that no matter how tired and/or lazy I am in the future, I will NEVER use it again. In the middle of my border, this huge, messy, liquidly GLOB of black icing lands on my cake!!!

AAAAAHHHHH!!!! And Katie says that's her FAVORITE icing. Can you "antithesis"? (Is that even the right context...?) I tried to salvage the cake as best I could, but there's a dip in the cake where I removed the glob, and I had no more white icing to repair the damage. But I put the shells back in place (as in a piped a few more) and prayed that everyone else would not have my critical cake decorator's eye.

And I don't think they did. At least, when I delivered the cake today, I got lots of compliments. And, the cake matched the decor, so I think I did good. :)

Close-Ups of Some of the Flowers: