gold in chaos

ÚÛ

THIS DESIGN TESTS GRAVITY in such a way that you might forget that you’re looking at a cake! The shape, inspired by a gold lamp, was a little too pristine on its own, so I accented it with sugar thistles.

ÚÛ

To make an upside-down tiered cake, insert straws into each tier following the instructions on page 120, with each tier on a cake board for stability. Stack the tiers from smallest to largest, then insert a wooden dowel as described on page 122. Since vegan, gluten-free cakes are more fragile than other cakes, I recommend stacking no more than three cakes, and keep them on the smaller size, with the top tier no larger than 8 inches in diameter. Fondant-covered cakes are great for a design such as this since the fondant acts as an outer shell to protect the tiers.

Here, I brushed the cake and boards lightly with a gold wash using a large paintbrush and gold dust mixed with vodka. For a more transparent metallic finish, add extra vodka to the gold wash.

To MAKE THE THISTLES, follow the instructions for sculpting blossoms on a wire on page 142, using a daisy cutter and dark purple sugar paste and layering 10 to 15 rows of petals to create a rounded thistle shape. Follow the technique on page 152 to make the leaves, using a dark green sugar paste. I dry-dusted both the thistles and leaves with darker powder dyes to create shadows that contrast the gold tiers.