Shipping Containers... Yum!

So my next project is to put together a cake that looks like a bunch of shipping containers for a international shipping company (Owner is a friend of mine). It's their 4th Anniversary. It's also going to be a surprise for the owner, but I'm betting he doesn't read blogs. I plan on having about 8 containers which will be individual cakes themselves and having the company's logo stenciled onto the side of one. I'm also planning on setting up the cake base as a concrete lot as is the case with most shipping docks. I'll post photos in a couple of weeks when the project is complete.

Panda Bear cake

I have just gotten commissioned for an infant's birthday party (for some reason, I find I am very popular with the infants). The baby's mother will be throwing a special Asian-themed birthday party for her child, complete with a Buddha ice sculpture! She just needs a super neat cake for the finishing touch. For the flavors, she selected one of the asian flavor combos on my site. It's the green tea cake, with raspberry filling and ginger butter cream. My client loved the cherry blossom cake I had done for a Mothers' Day Celebration. While it is pretty, I'm a big fan of cute characters for children. So I suggested perhaps a Sanrio character. 'Pretty Asian' I thought. No, apparently, too cliche. I decided to brainstorm.

I actually got the idea from a clothing catalog. I saw this adorable T-shirt with a panda bear on it. I was going to go for it. The idea of was too cute. My client agreed.

Here is the plan: 2 8-inch tiers for the body, a tall 7-inch tier for the head, and cut-out arms and legs, modeling paste ears and tail, covered in fondant. The customer originally wanted a piece of bamboo... I will throw in a pink gum paste blossom behind the ear.

Here is a computer rendering of my sketch. Frankly, my husband did this, and this is his interpretation of my sketch. We'll see how it turns out.