Mandy's shower

With the wedding only a few days away I thought I'd fill you in. Well it's this Sat and Mel and I are baking away.  The flowers are done, the cakes are baked, now we have to make all the fillings, frosting's etc all to be put together at the venue.  We did hold a shower for Mandy back in July.  Mel & I, of course, made her cake.  Ahhh the cake. Well Jon proposed to Mandy on a hot air balloon during a fabulous vacation overseas. So what better way to commemorate the event at her bridal shower than having a hot air balloon cake. Great idea right?  Well, I think I bit off a bit more than I could chew.  The hot air balloon was my project. It took me 4 tries before I decided to take the easy route.  I 1st thought I'd cover a real balloon with gum paste and when it dried pop the balloon and voila a gum paste balloon. NOT!!!  The gum paste shattered right along as the balloon popped. The I tried the same idea but let the air out slowly out of the balloon but wrong again. As the balloon deflated so did the gum paste. On to the next idea.....I tried the cereal treats but way too heavy, then just plain old fondant, yeah solid piece of fondant and that was way too heavy.  A couple of days to go to the shower and on my way home from work I stopped off at Michael's and picked up Styrofoam.  That's right......1 egg shape and 1 ball.  Cut a piece of the bottom of the ball to make it flat and same with 1 end of the egg. Glued them together to form a balloon!!!!!  Yeah, covered it in fondant and decorated it.  Only thing is next time (yeah right) I will have to ensure my support structure is firm. Here's the cake, turned out okay but now I know........

The bottom tier was a lemon cake with lemon filling, the top tier was choc vegan cake with cappuccino cream filling and the basket was made from lemon cake and frosted in the basket weave.  This is where I goofed. The basket should probably have been made out of Styrofoam as well with a dowel secured into it and then into the cake for better support.  But it held up long enough.
Now it's on to the wedding. Lot's going on there. I will definitely post pictures.  Here's a couple of pictures of the cookies we made and decorated for the shower as well.  Each guest received one and no 2 were alike.

Well gotta go.  Ciao for now!