My boyfriend is a welder and I found this cake on Pinterest that he would love. So I want to do something similar for his birthday, but I don't know how they got this texture. I know how I can make the silver frosting (welded parts) but the sort of burnt texture is where I am lost. Also, do you think the panels of fondant were dried first before attaching them? I really like that scratched up look that it has, it looks like real welded metal. http://www.pinterest.com/pin/A7UEqAAQAFsGrUbAOZUAAAA/

I don't know exactly, but If I was going to recreate it I'd do chocolate panels with edible metallic paints and cocoa butter paints to give it the texture. Or if you wanted to go with something that nobody would eat you could do it with gumpaste panels, which might be how that one was done because of the white in the underpainting-type areas. It's just a lot of layers of color, pretty much.