Mardi Gras Sweet Sixteen

In honor of Fat Tuesday, I thought I would highlight a Mardi Gras sweet sixteen cake that I created recently for a client in Boone, NC. The cake itself was three tiers - a 10" chocolate layer, a 8" vanilla layer and a 6" lemon layer all with vanilla buttercream and covered in buttercream-flavored fondant. All of the accents are made of fondant and I finished off the detail with gold sugar dragees.

For the topper, I hand-crafted a mask worthy of a Mardi Gras celebration. The mask was plastic and I added the feathers and beading with a hot glue gun. The beads hanging at the side of the cake were purchased at a local retailer and displayed by wrapping them around the wooden dowel rod that supported the mask into the top layer of the cake.

I would have like to have made the mask and beads from gumpaste, but with the client being the one to carry this cake in her personal vehicle from Winston-Salem to Boone, NC I was afraid something would break on the cake and I wouldn't be there to fix it or replace it. Perhaps I will have the opportunity to do another Mardi Gras cake sometime soon and I can test my mask-making skills at that time!