Flower Fault Line Cake

The Fault Line Cake (also known as Torn Buttercream) is the hottest new trend in cake decorating. Think earthquake (sorry California) where the earth cracks open and exposes what is below. The fault gap can hold anything: sprinkles, stripes, naked cake layers, or even flowers. The flower version is my favorite. 

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A friend asked for a chocolate 50th Birthday Cake so I decided to make her a chocolate Fault Line Cake filled with flowers.  I made a bunch of gum paste flower ahead of time - roses and carnations and hydrangeas in shades of white, rose, and peach.  (Don't tell my boss, but I make the flower at work during my lunch hour.)

To make the cake itself I baked four 8" cakes and one 5" cake.  I placed the 5" cake between the stacked 8" cakes which gave me a nice deep depression to hold my gum paste flowers.

I crumb coated the cake, chilled it for 30 minutes, and then arranged my flowers in the gap.  Thankfully I had just enough flowers.

To fill the open spaces between the gum paste flowers I piped stars and leaves in pink and green buttercream.  Next I slathered on a thick layer of black buttercream over the 8" sections of the cake and then smoothed the buttercream with my bench scraper.  The pushing and flattening of the buttercream causes a rough edge to form over the gap.  The rough edge and the flowers peaking out from under it makes it look like an earthquake has open a gash in the earth and flowers have begun to grow in the gap.  How cool is that?!

After chilling the cake for a short time, I  painted the edge of the fault with gold edible luster dust mixed with Everclear.  The gold color really makes the fault line pop.

At this point it was close to midnight, so I put the cake in the fridge and went to bed.  The next morning I used my Cricut to cut out the gold cake topper, removed the cake from the fridge, and placed by gold topped on the cake.  I started taking pictures and realized that I hated the cake.   I mean HATED IT.  I thought it looked ugly and morbid.  I started to panic.  I couldn't deliver a cake that looked this bad.  I asked family members for their impression of the cake (hoping I was overreacting and it wasn't that bad), but EVERYONE I asked also hated it.  One comment was, "It isn't pretty but it is interesting."  Another person said, "It looks macabre."   And the final comment was just, "Ewwww!"

It was 2 hours before delivery and I was desperate to fix the monstrosity.   I had some soft consistency white buttercream left over from a previous cake, so I stiffen it up and just started slopping it on top of the black.

I made it as smooth as I could, painted on my gold, and threw on some edible gold flecks.  I also had to cover the black cake drum with white fondant, and replace the ribbon around the edge.  It came down to the wire, but I was able to finish.

So here is the "fixed" version, and NO, I'm not going to post the hideous black version.  I don't want the poor thing to show up on Cake Wrecks.

Happy Decorating,

Carol


Supply List: 


14" Black Cake Drum
Satin Ice Gum Paste
PME Bench Scraper
Roxy & Rich Gold Edible Luster Dust
Cricut Explorer Air 2