Birch Bark Wedding Cake

This four tier birch bark wedding cake was created with modeling chocolate on the sidewalls. I chose modeling chocolate and luster dusts because I wanted to create a more realistic bark. I covered the walls of the cake in white modeling chocolate, cut the top off level with the cake and dusted it with the customer's wedding color, Tiffany Blue. To create a sheen to the modeling chocolate bark I dusted the entire tier in a pearl luster dust. Then I used a the wide tipped Dresden fondant tool, to create the straight lines, and an Exacto knife to create the peeled bark effect. Once I sculpted the chocolate I used an oil based food coloring to paint in the dark lines. Once the cakes were stacked it was a matter of adding the sugar flowers. I made somewhere around 175 sugar flowers for this cake. I knew that I wouldn't use all of them but I wanted to make sure that I could create a full arrangement. I did, however, use about 80% of them. When I started the sugar flowers I made just the Tiffany Blue sunflowers. I had to contact the customer because I felt that they didn't look like sunflowers and was worried that it wouldn't be to the brides liking. She sent me an image of her wedding bouquet which had yellow and white sunflowers. So, we discussed it and decided to go with white, Tiffany Blue and yellow sunflowers. I also added sugar Stephanotis, roses and baby's breath. When I started adding the sunflowers sugar leaves it really brought the flowers out. It took me 7 eight hour days just to complete the sugar work for this cake. All together it took around 75 hours to complete but the bride was stunning, the wedding was gorgeous and the cake was a beautiful hit!