Little Artist Birthday Cake

To all Bulgarians March 1st is known as Baba Marta day, the day when we share "marteniza", the symbol of spring, health, and new beginning. Also on this day, my youngest nephew's was born. Mihail loves to paint, draw, and enjoys anything that has to do with art or gardening. My daughter Natali shares Mihail's love for art, so several years ago she started a painting of my sister and my little nephew that she never finished. Recently, when Mihail visited us, he saw the picture and ever since he keeps asking when will the picture be finished. Well, this past week that time came. I guess it is true when they say, an artist has to have an inspiration. 

Since I made the 101 Dalmations cake for my 3 yr old niece (her most favorite movie) a couple of weeks ago and she said she wanted a Winnie the Pooh cake, I thought I should do a better job for her brother's birthday. I wasn't sure how exactly to impress him, but decided that I have to combine the Baba Marta holiday with his hobbies. I had also recently bought an air brush that Natali was dying to try, so my idea of an artist's cake was born. I asked Natali to draw a picture for the cake and I was going to take care of the rest. 

The cake was made of chocolate layers with vanilla milk cream, and mixed with whipped cream filling. To sweeten it a little more, I added caramelized almonds. Well, since this was my next try for a tasty recipe, the filling turned out to be a little too runny. I put the cake together and ... it was not cool. Filling was running and the cake did not hold a shape at all. I didn't have time to fix it though, and it was too tasty to throw away...so I had to make it work. I figured I had to cover the sloping edges somehow, and that was done by throwing some colored "artist's rags" on top. A snow drop and а crocus symbolized the upcoming spring (and my nephew's love for plants and flowers). I made marteniza of fondant, and it was time for the artist's touches. A brush, a color tube and the artist's easel were created from sugar and waffles. The "canvas" was made out of two waffle layers "glued" together with Nutella and covered with fondant. Since Natali wanted to test the air brush, she promised to have a picture for the cake at the end of the day (I had no idea what she had in mind). I was amazed when I came home from work...she had painted an actual picture of Mihail and Geri to put on the cake! I was impressed! 

We put the cake together, but don't think we were all done. The easel was not strong enough to hold the heavy canvas and broke right when I was getting ready to take the first picture. When the picture fell, it broke some of the extremely fragile marteniza strings and left brown streaks on the white "cloth" that covered the cake. After some fussing around, the cake was ready....

Well, I think my nephew liked it. He wants to have all the cake decorations...so they are going into a parcel overseas.

Thanks for joining me in sharing the making of this fun cake!