My Mom just asked me today if I would like to do the cake for my Great Grandmother's 98th birthday party. Of course I'd love to do it, but I'm new to this, and I'm not sure if I can do justice to a cake for my GG! Oh, and p.s., the party is two weeks away!!! Help! Does anyone have ideas for an elegant cake that my GG will love but is easy enough for me to pull off?

Hi there "proud navy wife",

Another "proud navy wife" here! You did not elaborate enough about your grandmother or her likes, etc. for me to come up with a GREAT inspiration! Can you share anything that might help?

P.S. I am the wife that was formerly at Ft. Meade!

Suzanne

Here is a practice cake I made for some friends...their grandmother is turning 98 and wanted a strawberry cake and love gardening. I took them at their word and made a STRAWBERRY cake...WASC with strawberry filling and berry design.

For the real cake, I think I will probably use a heart-shaped pan...

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=542823

How about buttercream flowers on a bc frosted cake? Pretty for a GG and not too hard to make the flowers. The Wilton instructional books show you how. Just a thought.........

You could put a few edible image pictures on the cake. One of her as a baby and one of her as a new bride and one of her with family. Then just add roses and a fancy trim.

I've seen your cakes and you wont have any problems putting one together. I was thinking maybe something like your mountain dew cake but in softer colours maybe pastels. Maybe a basket of flowers or garden theme (all grandma's seem to love flowers). Look under the mother's day section there are some beautiful cakes there which you could adjust to make them suit.

Here's one I did for my MIL for mother day.
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_510203.html

See, I get in a panic and don't think about what I'm doing! LOL
A little bit about my GG...she used to be a teacher (when my Mom and her siblings would send her letters she would circle the mistakes and send them back for corrections! LOL), she was a farmer's wife and of course that meant she was a farmer, she is one of the most outspoken women I have ever met. She has lived in PA, FL, and AZ. She doesn't believe in wasting time, or wasting much of anything, really! When my brother and I would get restless, as kids, she'd put us to work weeding the garden or digging thistles out of the pasture. She is quite possibly the least "delicate" woman I know (followed closely by my mother!).
BlueDevil...your strawberry cake is adorable, I think the heart shaped pan is a good idea, and if you don't mind I think I will steal that idea to use later, but it's not quite what I'm looking for in this case. It just popped into my head that using a 6" heart pan for that strawberry would make a great smash cake for a Strawberry Shortcake themed birthday party.
SueW...I am no good at making bc roses! I don't know what it is about them that is so hard for me, but I just can't get it right! lol I've even had one of my best friends (jenbenjr on this site) show me how to do it, but as soon as she's not around I just screw them up again! lol
Suzanne...completely off topic, but I've been meaning to get back to you for a while now...my best friend here worked in the arts and crafts center, and I'm pretty sure it was for a guy named Richard...I'll ask her for sure next time I talk to her!

Thank you, Kelli!

Okay, here is my suggestion.....I was thinking that you could do a sheet cake or a square cake and cover it in buttercream, etc. With fondant, you could make some small squares the size of the old polariod camera pictures and then print pictures of her during various times of her life. I would suggest doing this on normal computer paper and doing it in all brown, if you could, like the old sepia pictures. Then you position them on the cake as if they had been scattered on a table or tossed. This way you are only seeing glimpses of the life she had. Then I would have a saying on the bottom or on a banner that really describes her personality......

Hope this idea helps!
Suzanne

Suzanne...that really does sound gorgeous, thank you so much for that idea! Even if I don't use it for this cake (only because I'm not sure if I could get pics together from my crazy family in time to get it done), I will definitely keep that idea in mind for future projects! Thanks!!!