The Winterscape Cake

This was supposed to be the perfect holiday cake.

Except I made it two weeks after Christmas and a week after New Year's.

This was the cake I had wanted to make, before sickness and life happened. It was going to be a two layer cake with a peppermint buttercream

 icing.

With the way my schedule is I thought a larger one layer cake - about 13  by 9. It was easier to bake

I used Duncan Hines Perfectly Moist Dark Chocolate Fudge cake

This mix requires three eggs which makes for an incredibly moist cake.

Then it was time for the decoration. I wanted to create a winterscape with pine trees.

This was my first time using fondant

It's a white gummy kind of icing that can be used as a covering for cakes or cupcakes. I just wanted to make pine trees.

This required my embroidery scissors and the mini skewers I used for the Easter.

The scissors are used for making the boughs while the skewers are used to spin the fondant around to cut.

Since fondant is white, green food coloring has to be added.

It's then hand mixing the coloring into the fondant and rolling the fondant into cones.

It kind of looks like cotton candy before it's cut.

This is it. Not bad compared to the other three made. Fondant is temperamental. It needs to be kept in a dark cool place once the package is opened.

The icing was a simple peppermint buttercream that I got from The Two Sisters blog. They have the best buttercream recipes with all sorts of flavors. I've used their cream cheese one already.

It's typical buttercream - although I used I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, confectioner's sugar along with two teaspoons of peppermint extract.

It's Neisen-Massey's which makes the best extracts. This was blended with the confectioner's sugar , I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and a tablespoon of almond milk to get it creamy.

This was frosted over the cake. The trees were added , along with silver sanding sugar for a sparkly snow effect.

This was my Christmas  - winterscape cake. I will make it again. I love the new Duncan Hines' mix. and there's something about peppermint buttercream that's heavenly. As for the fondant, I will try it again. It makes for pretty decorations.