Birthday cakes all round, cowboy and leaf pattern

Francesco's birthday cake

also my first time painting on fondant with gel food colours and pure alcohol  for dillution, works like watercolours, definately going to practice this cool technique

my icing skills are not completely portrait-like yet but i tried. this is the sweet face of Clint Eastwood
this is royal icing in 2 layers. first you  take a long time to  draw your picture into the shades of icing you want to use, here black, grey and white. then you position this image under baking paper and pipe the colours ontop, its like paint by numbers. when this has dried, maybe in a day, you take thick royal icing and a thin nozzle and pipe the details ontop

inside the cake was chocolate sponge and a new cream i tried making pastry cream which was like a custard from scratch. i over cooked  it a tad, have to practice

i didnt cover this cake in fondant because he doesnt like fondant, he likes chocolate. so its covered in dark chocolate ganache with some fondant details

and a few days later it was my birthday! i have never made my own birthday cake before and after some hitches with experimenting with creams inside it turned out okay

i made what i wanted for a cake for once so i made a madiera vanilla sponge  filled with lemon curd and black cherry cream layers and covered in white ganache buttercream. very delish

im fixated with this leaf pattern at the moment, i cant stop drawing it everywhere