Another Status Update

The problem with making huge, detailed cakes is you spend weeks prepping them. My next competition cake will be done 1 week from today.  I've been working on different pieces of this cake for weeks already.  Here's where I am now:

I was up past 1 last night finishing up the dusting, steaming and glazing for all the roses and leaves-- hydrangea leaves are the big ones and the smaller ones are rose leaves.

The pictures legitimately don't do the roses justice.  They are much brighter in real life.  I dusted all 32 of them last night.  And steamed them.

You know you're OCD when you actually add thorns.  ;)

 

You can see some brooches I'm working on in the bottom of this picture.

The pictures don't do the hydrangea justice either.  They're actually all dusted with no less than 4 different colors. 

The dendrobium orchids are actually a very light pink on the edges... which you can't see in the pic. :(

Final count: 27 fully blown roses, 1 mid sized rose, 5 tight rose buds, 60 pearled stephanotis, 122 hydrangea, 22 hydrangea buds, 18 dendrobium orchids, 18 hydrangea leaves, and 14 rose leaves.

I also made isomalt gems today:

Isomalt is a sugar substitute known for its clarity.  However, if you overcook it, it starts to yellow, which is why some of the gems are like low-grade diamonds. ;)

More of today's labors:

 

And I made a custom board for the cake:

It has feet, so you can get your fingers under it to lift it:

All this and I haven't even started baking yet! :oP 

Don't worry-- I'll be sure to get better pictures of the final product next week before the show.  In the mean time, trust that I haven't fallen off the planet.  Quite the contrary, I'm busily caking away! 

In case you haven't heard yet, I did not win anything in Threadcakes.  I wasn't expecting to, so it's alright.  The important thing was that I tackled a really big 3D cake project and I was happy with the outcome.  At the end of the day, it didn't seem to be in the same style as the winning entries.  Sometimes you have to make a trade-off between doing what you want to do and what you think the judges will most appreciate.  That said, I hope the judges appreciate this cake I'm working on now, hahaha.... :) 

Enjoy the rest of your Labor Day weekend!