This is by far my FAVORITE cake. When I started the design process, this EXACT design is what was in my head and I couldn’t have been more excited that it came out exactly as I had hoped.

I love designs including textured layers of cake and my hope was that this cake would maintain its elegance after the grass layer was completed. In my head, the concept seemed *amazing* but I was a bit concerned that it would look a bit childish when it was completed.

It didn’t.

As soon as I started assembling the cake, I started getting excited…….

Like REALLY excited! So excited in fact that I emailed Carrie at Half Baked, the Cake Blog to see if perhaps she was interested in featuring it on her awesome site.

She said yes, by the way. You can see the write up here.

I think the painted poppies are what make this cake “pop”. I made them from gumpaste, let them completely dry and hand-painted them using various blue food colorings diluted with vodka. After they dried, I came back and did a bit of highlighting with white food coloring. A little yellow gumpaste, a bunch of stamen and a toothpick were all I used for the centers. Again, I was going for a painting so I didn’t bother with trying to make them look real.

The grass was incredibly tedious. I used a lily flower cutter and cut off the bottom portion so that I had a strip of leaves. Using a ball tool, I lengthened each leaf and softened the edges. I did this for hours and hours (6) with multiple shades of green to achieve the ombre look.

The final step I did on this cake was to dust the yellow tier with gold luster dust. I didn’t think that it really showed up until I saw these fabulous photos from Sylwia Ok Photography.

All in all, I could not have been more pleased with the outcome of this cake! It makes me happy and since it was Mother’s Day and there were 8 inches of snow on the ground in Alaska, I could have used all the “happy” I could find!