color and lines cakes

cake number 1, the meeting with the bride and groom was very interesting. from the beginning of the meeting both the bride and the groom stated they weren't cake people. oh good, this meeting should be easy, right?? wrong. they didn't like any of the cakes i brought for the tasting.  well when i mean they it was really the bride. it took her a while to state what she really wanted was red velvet cake.  it would have been nice to know that before the meeting but i digress.  so i said we could do that but she was hesitant.  so i said i would be happy to bring a sample to her.  unfortunately they wouldn't be able to make it in to the city so the bride suggested that the aunt at the tasting should taste it. the aunt who was already  that is when the groom stepped in.  stating that it would only cause more problems.  they already stated they weren't cake people.  what happens if the aunt doesn't like the cake??  then what?  i like this groom.  hehehe.  so the bride agrees and just goes with red velvet.  as the meeting is closing up she is asking the planner what the cost would be to use an outside vendor for the cake.  ouch....my feelings are hurt.  really, you couldn't wait until i left to say this??  but then again, i don't want money from an unhappy customer.  but in the end she choose to go with us.  she wanted a light gray buttercream cake with a dark gray fondant ribbon and white dots, she sent a picture.  dealing with colored buttercream is like a pulling teeth, you can only do it once so you better do it right the first time.  otherwise you will have streaking and streaking sucks because you can't fix it.  the fondant color on the ribbon was more of a charcoal then a dark gray but in the light is looks right on with the picture.   

cake number 2, this cake helped me build nice forearm muscles.  the picture looked like it was piped lines.  so i tried piping on the anniversary cake.  if you ever want to test something on a cake always do it on an anniversary cake.  i realized i need to work on my piping.  no matter what i did, piping was not the way to go.  so i thought fondant would be the answer and it was.  i remember i had an extruder so put the fondant through the extruder to created the lines.  of course i had to mix the fondant with shortening otherwise it would have got stuck in the extruder. that took some time.  it was like using those hand grippers, i managed to build some forearm muscle while using the extruder, a plus.  :)  i don't think you can really tell it is fondant.