Featured in the latest issue of American Cake Decorating magazine. Positioned before a deep purple background, this emerald inspired cake by The Mischief Maker truly stands out. The concept for this cake is inspired by naturally occurring metallic colors and marvels found in nature. To contend with these natural marvels, other elements in the design have been dramatized in the spirit of fantasy, exoticism, and escapism. African elements intermingle with French mouldings and design motifs, for an unlikely scene and fresh juxtaposition. By highlighting some of the beautiful natural elements found in Africa and in setting them in a European base, an evocation of travel is achieved. A visual representation of the sensation of achieving unfamiliar knowledge through world travels and returning back home again, to achieve one whole, newly blended self.

To fully encompass the emerald concept, the inset emeralds on the second tier were accompanied by a surrealist vision of gilded African olive branches, which were spotted with African olives made of edible isomalt emeralds. These branch arrangements on the third and fourth tiers converge on a delicately strung isomalt emerald. Found amongst the three-dimensional sugar emerald olives and the African olive branches are small olive blossoms of golden sugar, the center of each includes handmade sugar stamens tipped with black edible pollen.

Not to be a one note, or one color, exhibition of sugar work, the cake is not limited to only emerald gems. Instead, both gilded and jewel encrusted sugar figs are incorporated throughout the arrangement, which mimic the teardrop shape of the hanging emeralds. Since unripe figs have hard green exteriors and pulpy red centers, we tiled individual beads of isomalt emeralds, red beryl (also known as red emeralds), and isomalt diamonds to coat each gem encrusted sugar fig. Each bead had to be painstakingly made by hand before application to the sugar figs could even begin.

Miniaturized gems were also applied along the back of the black caterpillar you see atop one of the gem encrusted sugar figs, nestled along the base of the cake. However, the diminutive caterpillar was not the only sugar figure on this emerald cake. The crown jewel of this cake, or should we say crown bird, is the painstakingly hand sculpted sugar emerald starling. As a bird native to Africa, the emerald starling subsists partially on figs, which could be why our sugar emerald starling seemed rather cozy with one of our gem encrusted sugar figs. To bring the exotic avian to life, each individual feather was hand cut and veined before being applied to the all sugar sculpture.

To allow the bird to stand on its own two legs, the bird sculpt had to be secured on a special structure that elevates both the bird’s body and tail off the surface of the cake. Lastly, hand painting allowed us to bring the sugar emerald starling to life, in all its metallic splendor. In addition to the sugar emerald starling, jeweled figs, gold sugar flowers and foliage, sugar marble berries offered the cake another metallic element. Like emeralds, figs, and emerald starlings, marble berries can be found in Africa. Composed of shades of blue, green, purple, and more, marble berries are the brightest biological substance in nature, and their brilliant metallic color comes not from a pigment, but from specialized structures in the cells of the fruit itself, much like the feathers of a peacock.

Opting for black fondant allowed the cake and backdrop to exude an air of fantasy and escapism that they would have been otherwise unable to convey had the tiers been white. By darkening the overall scene, the black cake pushed the edible isomalt emeralds and other sugar details forward visually and allowed them to stand on their own, uninterrupted by stark infusions of white. When all of these edible design elements come together with the purple background to form a cohesive color palate, the resulting cake is an ocular feast befitting any romanticist’s dreams. We thank you for taking the time to read the full descriptions of our conceptual cake designs. They give insight and explanation behind all of our cake designs, and are vital to the overall understanding of our pieces.

www.mischiefmakercakes.com

Images by Natasha Raichel Photography.

You can purchase the American Cake Decorating issue, which features this cake here: https://www.pubservice.com/subnew1page.aspx?PC=AD&PK=M71WEB