A Tale of Three Cities/Gift Boxes/Rock Climbing Cakes

Robin and her team at Gateaux Inc. are working on a wedding cake for Marissa and Robb. Marissa spent several years in the bright lights of New York City while Robb did the LA thing. Last year both moved back home to Minnesota, and within a month cupid struck. Their 'Tale of 3 Cities' is to be told with the creation of a towering cake depicting the skylines of the NY, LA & Minneapolis. Robin even enlists her handy father-in-law 'Magic Phil' to help her recreate the Minneapolis 'Cherry and Spoon' sculpture. Will this skyscraping cake be too tall an order? At the White Flower Cake Shoppe in Cleveland, Ohio, owners Marianne Carroll and Lauren Bozich have been best friends since 7th grade. The team also includes Marianne's husband, Matt, who is skilled in sculpting. This week, they're working on a wedding cake for Courtney and Brent. Their holiday-themed wedding of ornaments, silver & snowflakes inspired Lauren to design a cake consisting of all these elements, and a huge stack of neatly wrapped black-and-white Christmas presents. The bride insists that the gift-wrapped boxes look like they're wrapped in paper, not fondant! The challenge of using black and silver is that they can stain white fondant. They've also had disasters in the past when black fondant went grey because it was exposed for too long. Solution? Work in the dark! Christopher Garren's bakery works on a groom's cake for Brian, a rock climber from Northern California. His fiancee Sarah wants his Groom's Cake to play up this obsession. Chris suggests a cake that features a 3D human hand emerging from a boulder. In Chris' opinion, "It's tough to make an artistic mountain, the end result always resembles a turd".