I just got a last minute order! A dad is ordering a cake for his daughter who is attending college out of state (her first bday away from home)! I want it to be really special for her - she is turning 17. He said she loves the outdoors, is like an environmentalist, and will be working at a camp this summer...

ALL IDEAS WELCOMED! I have the weekend to come up with something! I will be delivering on Tuesday!!

Thanks

If you have Martha Stewart's recent wedding cakes books, there are several woodland-themed cakes in there. One idea: meringue mushrooms -- delicious and pretty easy. Ferns can be done with leaf tips, small bugs can be piped or made of fondant.

Perhaps putting some native wildflowers on the cake would make it really special (and the recipient sounds like she would appreciate the extra detail). Here's the link for the New England Wildflower Society: http://www.newfs.org/

Here the fern: http://www.wilton.com/decorating/basic/fern.cfm

Sounds like a fun cake!

Oh...and chocolate shavings can be used to make bark scattered on the "woodland" soil.

I think using the hollow chocolate roll-type cookies all around makes a cake look "woodsy".

Thanks for the ideas!

If you look in my photos, you'll find an outdoorsy cake I made for my Dad's birthday. The "logs" around the bottom teir are Pirolline cookies cut in half, and the rock wall on the top teir are just chocolate rock candies. If I had had more time I would have made the animals and trees out of fondant, but it was a last minute cake so I used plastic figures from Toy R Us. Just an idea