Kissing Cake

My next assignment for class was a children's cake. Now for this cake we had to use marzipan to mold little characters for the cake. Marzipan is made of almond paste, so it tastes like almond extract and it is the consistency of play dough. For my cake I did not want to try to make a character that every one would recognize, so I made my own. I wanted to do something a bit whimsical and fun. I had this idea of a it being "woodsy" themed... so I made the cake itself look like a cut of tree, with my little kissing couple on top. Here are some pictures of the final product:

The cute couple on top, the mushrooms, and red flowers are all molded out of marzipan, all the rest is just American butter cream. American butter cream is just butter or shortening or both whipped with powdered sugar and a little milk, it is probably the easiest butter cream to work with, because it is very stable with the addition of the shortening.

Another element of the cake that we worked on was a two toned cake, the sides are a different color from the top, it was the first time I had ever done this. It gave it a cool affect.