Nirvana

Hello faithful readers!   I apologize it's been a looooooooooong time since I posted anything new.  I have been busy getting my cake entry for National Capital Area Cake Show ready.  As I mentioned a while ago, I would not be posting entries specifically about the cake I was working on, lest judges be reading my blog.  However, I had planned to write up blog posts and just publish them all once the show was finished.

As they say, the best laid plans...................

Needless to say, there are no blog posts for the cake I entered last weekend.  I do have some in-process photos to show, and of course the end result.  I am starting another cake that is for a show the end of April, and am really going to try to take photos and write up a post each day to be published after the show.

So, without  further ado...........

I took a class a few months ago on how to do cakes in the Nirvana style.  I was inspired by the class, and decided to design my own (hopefully unique) Nirvana cake for my next competition.  I decided on a scallop theme to the cake, rather than the traditional straight or curved collars.  My idea was to do some piping or brush embroidery on the cake itself, that would show through the openings in the side panels of the cake.

If you've never heard of Nirvana style before, it is a cake that is surrounded by run-sugar collars and side panels.

Here is my hand drawing of what the sides were going to look like:

 

This is how they came out, not too bad!!

Then I put on the bottom collar, side panels and one of the top collars (there are two total):

I then put on the top collar (thankfully hiding my bad flooding, lol!), and did some embellishing to it:

Here's a close-up of the sides:

I added small daisies, piped leaved, and shimmer dust to it.

Here's the finished product!!

It had a large gumpaste daisy on top, along with gumpaste leaves, and small daisies on the collar.

My cake was entered in the Professional Division, Special Techniques Category, and won a First Place Ribbon!