The week after Sam’s 5th birthday, we celebrated my grandmother’s 90th birthday with a gift from the entire family of a special family tree quilt. To go along with the quilt theme, I created a three tiered coconut layer cake with coconut buttercream between the layers and a thin layer of fondant on top of each tier. Once I got my fondant in place, I pressed the pattern onto the sides with a combination of cookie cutters and a rolling wheel tool to give a stitched impression. I transported the cake 3.5 hours away to WV where my grandmother lives and then painted the yellow flowers and blue diamonds with lemon extract (which is mostly alcohol–the key) and powdered food coloring. I assembled the day of the party, piped stars to connect the tiers and placed some simple flowers on top for an elegant finish. The cake recipe is from Cooks Illustrated and it is dense, moist and had the most wonderful flavor and texture a few hours after we cut it open. We all agreed that the second piece was even better than the first. Fondant is wonderful for keeping a cake fresh.
