The Many Faces of Bee Bee; Dog Cake

This was a very special cake for me because it is a follow-up for my very first client from 23 years ago. 
That first cake was a bib-shaped baby shower cake that I learned how to make from Colette Peter's book, Colette's cakes.  
Fastforward to today and this cake is the college graduation cake for that same "baby" all grown up and amazing, graduating from Barnard.

Left: A Dog in Paris.  Right: The many sides of Bee Bee.

The concept behind the cake was to combine two passions: 
A beloved Havanese dog named Bee Bee, with wardrobe and costume styling and design.

Mer-Bee-Bee

Cactus Bee Bee, and Little Red Riding Bee-Bee

Alexander Mc-Queen Bee-Bee

Barnard Graduate Bee-Bee

The real life Bee Bee, perhaps one of the cutest dogs ever.

Once the idea for the cake was down on paper, the challenge was to figure out how to execute six different hand sculpted figures in a relatively short period of time.  
For that, I need to give a huge shout-out to Sachiko Windbiel from Mimicafe Union!! I met Sachiko at a great Karen Portaleo class recently and was immediately smitten by both her charm and her outstanding work. 
My sculpting medium of choice is usually modeling chocolate ♥. But when it comes to making really small figures, modeling chocolate can become somewhat less lovable.  
Tiny fingers and toes are always coming undone. I needed to try something else, so I got Sachiko's tutorial video, How to Make a Standing Fondant Figure. 
For me, (very much a creature of habit) there was a bit of a learning curve moving from modeling with chocolate to coaxing shapes out of fondant, but I have to say once I got the hang of it, I was all in.  AND no fingers or toes were lost in the process : )