New Life to Old Dummy Cakes

The life of a cake decorator is all about learning.  Learning new skills, new techniques, new ways to overcome obstacles.  At some point, every cake decorator will learn that purple fondant is horrible about fading.  And they'll also learn that decorating dummy cakes can sometimes be harder than decorating a real cake.

Take this cake for example.  I made it some time ago and initially it was the most beautiful shade of lavender.  But only a few months later it had faded to almost white, with just the faintest hint of purple.

Dummy cakes use styrofoam and can be costly, so you really want to get the most mileage out of them as you possibly can.  I wasn't quite ready to trash this cute little cake, so I used petal dusts in several shades of purple to give it what I thought was a nice watercolor effect.

I took it to a small bridal show soon after its renovation and one future bride just had a fit over it.  She called out to her future husband and said "Hey honey, come here and look at this awesome tie-dyed wedding cake!"  Hey, who am I to argue?