Please bear with me while I "talk out my plan" and help me to see where I am wrong. Or what I should reconsider before starting this project.

My mother's birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and I want to make her a cake that looks like a candy box with the box lid partially on the cake, filled with decorated cake balls (instead of candy truffles). My mother is in her mid 70s, so I want something classy, not too young looking.

My initial thoughts are to use a 12 or 14 inch square cake, 2 1/2 - 3 inches tall. Then I would cut strips of gumpaste so they are about 1 1/2 inches taller than the cake and let them dry. These would then go around the sides of the cake. For the top piece of the box, I thought I might try rolling out the gumpaste and then using the cake pan turned upside down for the form -- leaving about 1 inch for the sides of the lid. Then, once the gumpaste dried, it would be the perfect size for the box lid. Right? Then, to make the box look more like a gift, I thought about using some pretty transfer sheets on the sides of the box and box lid. And, a gift box is not complete until it has a bow, which would be either gumpaste or fondant.

To finish the cake off, I would fill the gift box with pretty cake balls set in mini cupcake wrappers, and attach the box lid so it is partially off the box.

This is very similar to many of the valentines "boxes" -- but not exactly.

What are your thoughts? Am I a wacko for thinking up this design and how to achieve it? Am I making this way too difficult than it should be? I admire all the decorators on CC and appreciate any advice.

Thanks,

June

OMG! I'm also planning out a similar design.

Go to Bakerella's website. She did something like this for Valentines Day. A cake, that looked like a heart shaped candy box, filled with cake truffles.

I did complete this cake over the July 4th weekend and was very pleased with the results (cake is in my gallery). Of course, while working through the details, I came across some things that I would change if I were to do this design again. That's one of the great things about caking -- there's always room for growth and improvement.