Celtic Design Cake

The cakes are back! I took some time off from making cakes for a couple of reasons. First of all, the house has had people coming and going but there has been no event that might require a cake, and I don't always feel like making a cake for no apparent reason when my family won't be around for long periods of time. Another big reason is that I like to be very careful about what I eat, and I am usually very disciplined...but there is no way I can say no to a delicious dessert sitting on the counter!
Finally this week I caved. I was home alone and cleaning out the cupboards and found a cake mix that was about to expire. I have never actually used a cake mix for one of my cakes before, but I figured this either has to be used now or end up in the trash, so why not take advantage of it? I actually made the Celtic triquetra symbol out of gumpaste about a month ago. It was originally going to be used for my attempt to make a book cake. Unfortunately the book had to be fairly large to give the effect I was looking for, so I opted to use a "fake cake" instead. I found that a large cereal box was just the size I needed. I ended up icing the box but the corners were so sharp, decorating it would really not have been anything like decorating a real cake, so I didn't really see any point in continuing.

I decided to make use of what I had and ended up with this. The cake was actually covered in two layers of fondant, and pieces were then cut out of the top. I had seen this technique on tv a couple times, and it really added another dimesion to cake.
I was a bit nervous about the surrounding design. It was all done free handed which meant it was easy to make a mistake. The silver design is just something I came up with, but I think it looks Celtic enough!
Yes, this is a pretty dark cake, but it's exactly the type of cake I love! A true ZacO creation! My next cake will be much "happier" lol.