making a garden out of marzipan

I'm sure you've seen a garden cake before. I just googled it and found lots of pictures and variations of this springtime novelty. Typically it is carrot cake decorated with vegetables.  Many, many moons ago Martha had it on the cover of her magazine. I remember sitting in my red kitchen in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts with my friend, Gia, molding vegetables out of marzipan. If Martha could do it so could we! We made carrots, cabbages, peas, and I really can't recall what else. I just know that it was a very time consuming process. So time consuming in fact that we skipped baking the cakes where these vegetables would 'grow' and ordered them from The Otherside Cafe, who back in the day made a mean carrot cake.

I thought I would make one for Easter this year. I'm feeling nostalgic as I sit here shaping these peas and carrots on this rainy Portland morning. It was not only faster to create this mini spring harvest with two sets of hands but the company and conversation made it seem like such a festive endeavor. Days like this I miss living on the east coast.