Waching daily Dec 3 2018

Hello.

Welcome to American Baker in Germany.

I'm Michelle and today we are making a Fall leaves cake for Autumn.

Let's get started!

I start out a couple days before making a handful of leaves that will dry beforehand.

I'm not cutting them all out at this point, but I do want a few that are dried beforehand,

so they have a little bit of life.

I didn't have any yellow fondant prepared, so I colored some white fondant with yellow

gel food coloring.

Then I took some of the yellow fondant and gently mixed it with a bit of orange fondant

creating a marbled effect.

Then I rolled it out and cut out some leaves out of it with some leaf cutters.

I let them dry on a piece of crumpled foil to give them a more natural look.

I stuck the cake down with a bit of strawberry buttercream.

This is strawberry cake with strawberry buttercream.

I fill the cake with strawberry buttercream and frost it with it as well.

If I had it to do over again, I would color the buttercream yellow, orange, red or brown

so it wasn't quite so obvious through the leaves, but the pink wasn't too bad, either.

I clean up my cake base with a damp rag and chill the cake half an hour in the fridge.

While I'm waiting for the cake to chill, I cut out some more leaves to cover it with.

I start out with some brown chocolate fondant.

There was a bit of marbling still in the fondant, but I thought it was better for the Fall leaves.

Next, I cut out some red leaves.

I also marbled some red and orange together and cut out a few more leaves.

Then I just kept blending different fondant Fall colors together to make more Fall leaves

of different amounts of red, orange and yellow.

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Then I started placing my leaves on the cake.

I started with the brown leaves because I wanted them to be the farthest in the background.

Then I placed the rest of the leaves I had cut out from darkest to lightest.

But I clearly did not have enough leaves.

I needed more like twice as many as I had originally cut out.

So, I go back to the drawing board, making more leaves with various amounts of red, orange

and yellow fondant and placed them on the cake, filling in the

gaps as well as I could.

I tried very hard not to see the pink buttercream underneath.

Once the sides were covered fairly well, and there were only a few gaps on the top of the

cake, I pulled out the dried leaves I cut out beforehand.

You can see how they stand up off the surface of the cake a bit.

That's exactly the effect I was going for.

Now I'd like to mention a serious topic.

When a green leaf falls, you have to wonder why.

You ask yourself, "How did that get there?"

It doesn't belong among the orange, red and brown Fall leaves.

So, I wanted to provoke everyone who looks at this cake to ask themselves, "Why is

there a green leaf on the top of that cake?"

This is why.

When I think of Fall leaves, I remember those who have fallen.

Most fall when they are at a good age.

When it is only right and natural.

Their deaths are sad, but not tragic.

However, we all know someone who has fallen before their time.

I meant this one green leaf to represent those who passed before their time.

Those whose death was a tragedy.

I know quite a few people.

But I'll only mention a couple.

My younger brother, Gregory, who died of an accidental overdose at age 31.

And my friend, Philippa, who died in a car accident at age 26.

Everyone knows someone whose death was sad and tragic.

This one, single green leaf is for them. All of them.

I placed it right in the center of the cake.

You can't miss it.

And a piece of it ends up in every slice.

Returning to cake, there were a few spots that bothered me on the cake where the pink

buttercream was visible between the leaves.

I used a bit of leftover marbled fondant to fill in a few gaps and press them in with

a fondant tool.

I think this cake turned out really beautiful.

I love Fall leaves.

I think they're so gorgeous and colorful.

And I think this was an appropriate memorial for those who have fallen.

We remember you.