Mexican Tile Cake

by Liana Turner
(Puerto Vallarta, Mexico)

This cake was actually made for a wedding, but the concept will work for any special occasion.

The cake itself is white wedding cake from Joy of Cooking. It is a dense, easy to work with cake, and the flavor is great. I live in a tropical climate, so this cake works well. It doesn't melt. Just needs to be kept in the coolest possible place, but not refrigerated.

What you see is all fondant.I decorated each tier separately and then put them together. The cake is first covered with buttercream to make it perfectly smooth.I made several colors of fondant according to the colors requested by the bride. This cake would be really gorgeous in traditional colors too, like deep blue, green and yellow, with rust accents. Working on one tier at a time, I first covered the whole piece with a base color fondant sheet. Then I used square cutter (I have a set of three, different sizes) to cut pieces of all colors and also a leaf shape cutter to make accents. The smaller tiles were made with a square cutter that came in the set. I made small handmade balls for accents in the center of some of the tiles and larger ones for around the base.

Then the fun begins...I used diluted fondant with water as glue (but royal frosting would also work).
The cake was reinforced with wooden dowels, as it was travelling by water in an open boat for about an hour. It arrived in very good shape. To transport, I put a heavy piece of foam rubber in the bottom of a box, then put the cake in,and there was no sliding.

Everyone loves this cake. They have never seen one like it.