What do you make for a man celebrating his 80th birthday whose love and pride for his mother country runs as deep and as wide as the Aegean Sea?
This cake was made for my father in law’s 80th birthday. He is very proud of his heritage and especially proud of the olive oil that is pressed from his family’s olive groves in Kalamata, Greece. So, I thought I’d cake-ify a tin of his liquid gold for his birhday. He loved it!

The feta cheese, crusty bread and olives were all made from gum paste. He thought it was really a tin of oil – one guest even tried to pick it up from the handle to read the details on the side of the tin!  Another popped an olive in their mouth but they weren’t expecting it to be so sweet! It was very funny to watch the reaction this cake got.  It filled my heart with love and gratitude for him and all of his generation that made the journey to a better life for themselves and their families.

We are so blessed.

This cake was carved from lemon scented butter cake and filled with white chocolate ganache.  Made to scale, it stood 13″ high.

The artwork was scanned in from the one and only tim we have left  and printed as an edible image. The board was hand painted with woodgrain details – everything you see here is edible and hand made from sugar.

The ideal Greek snack turned into the ideal birthday celebration cake!