Renaissance attire optional...

This has been an interesting week. I finished my little ferocious guy earlier while baking the layers for this cake. I constructed the center of the castle and covered the towers Friday night and finished the walls and remaining details Saturday morning. This is what the cake looked like on my kitchen counter...

(from the back) (from the front)

I ended up having to line the walls (cake) with a piece of cardboard toward the inside of the cake for stability. I must have used at least a dozen bamboo skewers! I was worried that the walls would fall over during transit, so I used some shortened skewers inside the "court yard" to support the walls.

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We only had two of the towers fall during the trip, and when we got to the reception, we found that the tip of the dragon's tail and the sword arm of the groom had broken off. Grrr! While I was setting up everything else, my faithful assistant (my husband) went looking for super glue to reattach the arm. Unluckily for us, the weather took a turn for the worst, and humidity coupled with rain and a strong gust of wind blew the front wall of the castle over. I'm glad now that I kept some extra skewers with me. I ended up propping up the front wall with some shortened lengths, and used to full sized skewers on either side of the draw bridge. Hubby and I stood behind the cake to block the gusts that threatened to tear down the wall again.

Here it is at the reception...

The humidity also wreaked havoc on the fondant covering the turrets, and some of the flags leaned a little more than I liked. I ended up sticking them in strategic locations elsewhere. The sword arm of the groom kept sliding off... apparently Loctite doesn't set up well with gum paste. My fingers are now a permanent shade of blue and purple from all of the adjustments.

You remember this guy, right? Here he is with his new dye job (and attached tail). He looks a little more vicious in green than he did in white!So, lessons learned: 1. Bring the hot glue gun. 2. Make the walls out of foam. 3. Bring an extra set of gloves to prevent finger dying. Got it. Ready for round two?