Yoga & Travel Retirement Cake

This cake was for one of my regulars' mum, who was retiring after 35 years on the job! Her mum loves yoga and travel but has never really had the time to just relax and unwind. So, to get the message across, her kids decided to get her this cake, to make sure she continues to spend more time doing the things she loves once she retires!

Yoga & Travel Retirement Cake

The cake is a strawberry cake, filled with strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream. To cover the cake, I marbled some fondant in different shades of blue together with some white. (most of the cakes this weekend have been blue!)

marbled blue fondant

The edge was bordered with a strip of red fondant, then I made a red airplane and a little suitcase to tie it into the travel theme. I have an airplane cookie cutter, which made making the plane simple. I just pressed the wings and tail fins a little flatter than the maid body of the plane to give it a more 3D effect. I finally got to use my mini propeller mold too! I really wish I had this propeller mold back when I had to make all those Dusty from the movie Planes cake pops...

elements of travel

To give the cake a bit of whimsy, I added puffy clouds around the cake (I used cloud shaped cutters, placing a piece of plastic wrap over the fondant and then pressing the cutter onto it, which makes the edges nice and round). For the black dotted line connecting the plane with the suitcase, I rolled into a really thin fondant snake and then cut into pieces, arranging the pieces onto the cake and sticking it down using a little bit of water.

3D clouds and propeller detail

The suitcase was made of dark chocolate fondant, shaped into a rectangle, with cute little details like the handle, straps and clasps. 

a closer look at the suitcase

For the figurine, I wanted to have a lady in a challenging yoga pose, with one leg up and two hands touching above her head. Apparently it's called a Tree Pose. I made the figurine out of gumpaste, to make sure it would dry nice and hard and be stable on the cake. There is a BBQ skewer running through her upper body and down one leg into the cake, which is how she's supported. Otherwise, she wouldn't be able to stand on the cake.

yoga tree pose!

I love the little details on the figurine, like her teeny fondant eyelashes and rosy luster dust-brushed cheeks. She's even wearing branded yoga wear :P Most importantly, she looks like she's positively enjoying doing yoga on a cake!

shameless Lululemon plug

I made the yoga mat by thinly rolling a strip of fondant, and then embossing it with a striped roller, first rolling it across and then up and down, to get the criss-cross effect. I rolled up the ends of the mat too to give it some movement.

Wishing this lovely lady a very Happy Retirement! Time to Relax & Enjoy!

om!

Happy Retirement! Time to Enjoy!