Your bark is among the most realistic I've seen for a birch cake. Do you mind telling me how you did it?

Mamabutton: Thank you very much!  I learned the basic technique from the Cake Masters online class by Kaysie Lackey called 'Woodland Wedding'. http://tv.cakemasters.com/ In the online class, Kaysie creates cherry wood and I adapted it because I needed to make silver birch. As this is a paid-for class, I don't feel it would be my place to tell you how I did it, because I don't think  that would be fair to Kaysie. I hope you'll understand. I definitely recommend the class, though! There are several other online tutorials and classes for 'tree bark' though so you might find another one you like. Some of them might be free. Once you learn the basic technique, it's all about making a careful study of tree bark. I simply had a good, hard look at silver birch trees!