My first real decorated cake in 15 or 20 years. Before this, I'd mostly made run-of-the-mill store mix cakes with canned icing and gel-in-a-squeeze-tube writing and decorations. I have made a couple scratch cakes, but not many. And I did have one success years and years ago: a carved Cookie Monster cake for a nephew's birthday that actually looked like the Cookie Monster. ~~~~ This one I made completely from scratch for a dear friend who was leaving on a trip for two months, then settling in to semi-retirement. It's devil's food cake, chocolate buttercream, marshmallow fondant, and vanilla buttercream for writing/detailing ~ all four made from recipes I'd found on the 'net. I painted the gold cake dust overall with lemon extract (learned that here ~ thanks, ya'll!).