Well, my friend's wedding was on Saturday. Those of you who have been following the creation of some of the decorations in the Confections thread have expressed extreme curiousity as to the final product, and here it is (I'm finally rested up enough to download the camera and sort the photos!) Without further ado, I give you the "Fairy Fantasy Cloverleaf Cake" - the only thing on here that I didn't make are the two tall gnomes, which are the keepsake figures for the bride and groom. The only nonedible thing besides those gnomes is the bridge - they're too heavy to support with sugar.
There are four flavours of cake here - orange walnut spice filled with orange marmalade (the section with the blue dragon on it); white coconut filled with cherry (the section with the green dragon and the sheep - this was the first section to be cut); apple raisin walnut spice filled with manjar de leche (the red dragon); and carrot filled with cream cheese icing (the rainbow dragon). Each section is 52 cm in diameter, which means that the full span is more than a full meter; each section weighed about 15 kg. It's frosted in vanilla flavoured ICBM. The entire cake was shipped as bare, stacked sections, then frosted on site; frosted sections were carried to the cake table (in the middle of a field, under a tent) and once all four were in place, decoration started, a process that took about an hour.
I don't, unfortunately, have photos of the cutting of the cake, since it's traditional that after the bride and groom make the first cut, the baker is the one to part it out. I have never seen anything quite like what happened with this cake though - it was like a shark attack. I couldn't get it cut fast enough for the 200+ guests, all of whom reached in as a single, frenzied unit to get at the figurines (very few of which were eaten - they became keepsakes for the guests). Wild. I'll see if I can get that section of video from the bride - it's really got to be seen to be believed! Guests made a point of seeking me out and telling me that it was "the coolest cake I've ever seen!" and "most wedding cakes look lovely and taste like cardboard, but this was beautiful and I want fourths."







For the curious, I have closeups of some of the elements (ie the flock of sheep and its faun shepherd; the dodos; the dragons) - let me know if you want to see them.