A Cake for an Outdoor Adventure

The incoming 9th-grade class at my school always does an overnight orientation before school starts, and this year, the group went to Black Rock Forest. To thank the teachers who chaperone this trip, the director of outdoor education asked me to make a chocolate cake that would feature the animals of Black Rock Forest (the camp cat, snakes, bears, coyotes, turtles, and owls), as well as elements of a typical camping adventure (tent, journal, rocks, campfire, hiking boots). The elements on top of the cake are all fondant, while the panoramic forest/lake scene around the outside of the cake was hand-painted using edible food dye on white fondant (with treetop cutouts). The "grass" on top is buttercream frosting.