A going away bouquet

Leigh and Juli are leaving work. It's all very sad... So I made a bouquet of flowers to cheer up the mood.

I was in the craft store looking through a cake book (can't remember the name) on Saturday and came across a cool cake in the shape of a long bouquet of flowers. I took a picture of the page with my camera phone (of course a store employee walked by as I took the picture... and if you know me, I was anticipating I would be getting into trouble for stealing the idea, kicked out of the store etc... but luckily that didn't happen) and went home to recreate it.

I made a strawberry and applesauce cake using no oil and mostly egg whites. It's covered with a thin layer of butter cream icing and then in marshmallow fondant. The flowers are also made with marshmallow fondant. It tastes much better then regular fondant so I'm glad this new recipe works. I added some mounds of royal icing under the leaves to give them some movement and to help hold them into position. I added some gumpaste flowers I had made the previous week as a practice with a new mold I just got. The cellophane around the outside was meant to look like it was a fresh bouquet they just opened up...

If I would do it again... I would keep the leaf colors in the same family of green- I used olive, leaf and kelly- would stick with just two and blend them a little differently. I would also choose two contrasting colors for the flowers to help make them pop out.

Overall, I'm happy with the cake and might try to do this again for another special occasion.