After all the buttercream false starts, eggwhite questions, and cakes spilling out of the pans, here it is.  Yellow buttercake with Mousseline Buttercream. Decorated with hand-made and painted butter cookie shells, and some chocolate shells and stones.  The theme for this wedding shower was the beach, and she also ordered butter cookies decorated like sea-shells.  The platter shows the favor cookies with the cookies that would eventually grace the cake, all on the cake board.

It was worth the greasy sticky kitchen.  I learned a lot, and found everyones posts most enlightening.  It’s great to have a place where you can pick everyone’s brains.

Over the years, my emphasis has been on decorated cookies.  This is the second time I have used them as cake decorations.

Thanks again,

JennyBee

Lovely job JennyBee.
The biscuits/cookies are very cute, I particularly like the way you managed to get the pattern on the Shell ones to look so realistic.

I agree… they are very realistic looking.  Beautiful job on the cake and cookies.

Wow!

Excellent job - the cookies are amazing and make wonderful cake decorations!

Your cookies shells are extraordinary!!!  And I love how you draped the plater and bottom of the cake with “ocean”

Excellent work, specially on the cookie platter. The shells look so real. What did you use for the “ocean” on the cake?

Thank you, all. 

The ocean is actually just buttercream.  If I were to be more adventurous I probably would go with rolled fondant for a smoother effect, and maybe some true dimension on the waves.  But I have never attempted rolled fondant before.  Maybe that will be my next project. 

I made a parchment pattern, traced it with, I think a safety pin, and piped on the buttercream.  I then smoothed it out with a toothed plastic clay tool to get some directional texture.  The platter is two 14” cake boards glued together and then iced with royal icing.

JennyBee

What a great idea to use shaped cookies! You’ve shown how elegant they can look, and I bet they are very tasty. Let’s see, what would I rather eat, pastillage or a butter cookie…

Cathy

Wonderful, Jenny!  I love the shells/cookies too

JennyBee,

I’m late to this thread, it appears that I am so technilogically challenged that I couldn’t figure out how to log in… Yikes! 

Anyway, great cake, really love the cookies!  And I’ve seen lately that cookies used to decorate a wedding cake are trendy right now, will that be your next project?

Best,
Julie

Julie,

Thank you.  I didn’t know there was a trend.  The customer the beach cake was for did comment that her shower cake was going to look better than her wedding cake.  So who knows?  I’ve never done a wedding cake. 

Glad you got the log-in down.  I love these forums.

JennyBee

Very cute! I have some “under the sea” cookie cutters that I have used several times but now I am inspired to do a beach cake with them!
Excellent job!

Rachel