If you haven’t heard of it, here’s the scoop: Margaret Braun is a well known “sugar artist”/cake decorator in NYC. Her work is incredibly ornate, and I’ve heard she commands a minimum of $10,000 per cake!

 Anyway, on the cover of her book is a cake called “Baroque in Patent Leather”.  Click Here to see what I’m talking about.  I love it! I’ve known of other people who have challenged themselves to reproduce the cake, mostly from trade forums and groups I’m a member of. Recently, I noticed a reproduction of the cake on another MN designer’s Website.

Because of the complexity involved, the fact that I’m not actually getting paid to do it, and also the wedding show I’ve got looming next month, I’ve decided to do it as a “dummy” cake.. the prep work will be murder. I can’t even imagine how much hassle it will be to carve that out of styrofoam - It would be no problem out of cake, but for the previously mentioned reasons, I’d really like this one to stick around for awhile!  So, I’m heading out this morning to pick up the styrofoam and gold, and will be carving it later today Haven’t decided if I’ll make the chalice at the top - she puts those goblets on EVERYTHING IN THE BOOK. Well, not “every” one, but pretty darn close. I don’t like the look. Maybe I’ll make something else for the top.

So, let’s see if I really can do pretty much anything on a cake! Cross your fingers! It’ll be obscenely labor intensive, but I think I have the skills to do it. Not so sure about the patience!