This cake was requested by a family friend who's son successfully earned his title as an eagle scout. For those who aren't familiar with the title, an eagle scout is the highest ranking you can earn in boy scouts.
With a little help from some local friends and connections, it was possible for me to have access to edible paper printouts of different boy scouts "skill badges" possible to get. So those are what made up the base of the cake.
All together, the cake has very little fondant (as a personal request from the eagle scout himself). I don't blame him- sometimes too much fondant gets overwhelming and gummy. Each tier has four layers of vanilla/chocolate marbled cake, separated by thick layers of vanilla Best Creme frosting. I love Best Creme frosting more than butter creme in that its lighter, fluffier, and not as sweet.
Once the frosting was smoothed over each tier, they were stacked together. I used three wooden rods to hold the tiers in place, which were removed right before the cake was cut.
Now it was time to make the scout-seal, which I used a chocolate mold for. Once the chocolate hardened in the mold, I removed them, then dusted them with edible gold glitter. It added just enough shimmer and color to jazz up the cake a bit.
The photo of the eagle scout was printed on edible sugar paper, which I tend to stay away from, but it was a request. Most of the time, the pictures come out grainy and blurry. However, I managed to fix up the resolution of the photo before it was printed in a way that allowed the edible ink to look proper. It came out great!
I then finished the cake off with twisted fondant as rope, and a custom eagle scout trophy to mark his success. The trophy isn't edible, but it is something unique to the eagle scout which he can keep as long as he likes.
The whole cake was set on top of a sanitized slice of wood from a local tree trunk to complete the natural-outdoorsy look.
