Ever had one of those cakes where you put SO MUCH work into one tiny little aspect of it, like the topper or the border, that your cake ends up being just a display or a mount for your one piece of work? I feel like I shouldn't even bother torting or filling, since the thing I'm featuring isn't even the cake, and the cake is just an excuse for it.
In this case, it was a painting for an iPod album cover (Coldplay's Viva la Vida ... I'll try to attach an image if I can). Went over great, but again, it was all about the stinking image I painted.

Here's me trying to attach the cover ....

Let me try again ...

One more time ...

And here's my rendition ...

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1788086&sub=1788088

Wow! Awesome job, you are a great artist. Pat yourself on the back for that one.

Wow awesome cake. I am sure everyone will talk about your cake, you are quite an artist.

That's a gorgeous cake!

I feel that way to a point. My decorating skills aren't anywhere close to yours, but I feel like the people I make cakes for are much more interested in what the cake looks like, rather than what it tastes like. I can't get anyone to order anything besides plain white or chocolate frosting with buttercream filling. I have tons of recipes for different fillings and cake flavors, but around here lemon and red velvet cake are considered "exotic". They expect two big slabs of white or chocolate cake with buttercream in the middle.

Wow, very impressive!

I completely understand your point but nothing is more disappointing than biting into a gorgeous cake and it taste like walmart cake. My goal is to make it taste as good as it looks.

That said as a reference for flavor expectation, I took mini chic cupcakes to a party. Nothing special at all and everyone kept coming up to me and telling me how good they were. Plain chocolate, citrus buttercream truly nothing special. My DH said ' I don't mean for this to sound bad but why is everyone raving about your cupcakes. They're just chocolate.' I laughed and said because they're better than grocery store cupcake

HOLY COW!!!! That is unbelievably cool...the kind of cake that people don't want to cut into because it's too beautiful. But I'm sure your friend also appreciated that it tasted good!

My son would love something like this in the shape of an iphone.......there's no way I can do such an awesome job as you, but can you give me any pointers to make something similar....what size is the cake, how did you get all the nice rounded edges, what worked best for the picture, what kind of black fondant did you use? tia

Seriously, some of you cake artists on CC are un-freaking-believable!!!

Pat-a-cakes, cashley, and Cindster: Thanks, guys!
Fruitsnack, it's so frustrating when people want same old same old, isn't it? I've just recently started convincing my friends to try different flavors, and once they did, it suddenly exploded and they all started asking for the fun ones (I don't sell my cakes, they're just presents and such, so it's all word of mouth as far as taste goes for me ).
Sillywabbitz, that's awesome! What kind of citrus buttercream did you use? I like the sound of the cobination, and I agree, people are just used to grocery store taste and anything that exceeds that is foreign to them .
Cakeythings1961, thanks so much! The iPod itself was easy to make: 9x13 pan, and I actually had very sharp corners on it that I had to round of a little bit to be consistent with the iPod shape! One thing I did do that I think made a nice difference: I used a ruler to score lightly all around the cake where the division would be between the black and the silver. In doing this, I made a clean line between the two that would be easy for me to respect when painting, but I also gave the illusion that the corner was a little more rounded, because I didn't score sharply to the corners but rather "rolled" the ruler around them to make them softer ... hope that makes sense! I used a dry spaghetti noodle to hold the plug in place on top, and silver luster dust with vodka for the sides. I let the screen dry a bit to hold its shape once I mounted it, but I didn't paint it until it was on the cake itself. And for the big dial, I again scored it, but then just went over it with clear pearl dust and vodka to give it the sheen the real iPod has (in contrast to the matte finish on the rest of the body). Feel free to PM me if you have any questions ... HTH!

Oh, and I made Michele Foster's fondant (my usual go-to recipe), and painted on the fondant with Americolors and a touch of vodka to dilute.

The citrus buttercream was my happy accident. I literally used what I had in the house. I emptied my last 2 bottles of extract which turned out to be about 1 tsp of lemon extract and 2 tsp of orange extract in Sugar Shacks recipe that takes 4 lbs of PS.
That said the citrus is quite subtle so if you wanted to ramp up the flavoring you could definately use more extract or Lorann's oils.

What I love about the citrus frosting is it goes great with all kinds of cake flavors. So far I have used it on :

WASC
Lemon Cake
Mimosa Cake
Chocolate Cake


Also I use the Italian Sweet Cream coffee creamer (my personal fav) for most of my buttercreams because it has a really nice rich taste but you can't quite place ...is it vanilla , is it almond..I really like it.

By the way emiyeric, you cake is absolutely amazing. I wish I had that kind of artistic talent.

Thanks, sillywabbitz! Sounds delicious ... haven't tried the Italian Sweet Cream creamer, but will definitely have to check that out as well. LOVE using fun creamers!

Emiyeric, thanks for all the details! I am printing them out right now so I don't lose them. My son was recently accepted to the accounting program at his college, so I want to make something special to celebrate.

Congratulations to you and your son, cakeythings! Let me know how it turns out ... be sure to post pics!