But wintry, twiggy, and DIY, as mentioned here, it was indeed.
Naked in full view:
In the wild:
Under attack:
Going to the big bakery in the sky:
Pound cake with raspberry preserve filling, after significant discussion. I wish I'd documented it, but back in October we got a plain sample pound cake (we'd decided on that much) with pint-sized containers of the following: caramel buttercream, caramel mousse, white chocolate buttercream, white chocolate mousse, vanilla buttercream, vanilla bettercream, vanilla mousse, raspberry preserves, cream cheese icing. Yes. 9 pint-containers (not all full) of cake filling. For one approximately 10-inch cake. Well, fortunately 5 of the fillings were immediately not to our taste, but let me tell you, fiance spent the next few days scouring the house for anything and everything suitable for dipping into the other four. And raspberry won out.
The pastry chef thought I was insane when I asked them not to do anything fancy to the icing, but I think it worked out okay. And we ate leftovers for weeks and still have the top layer wrapped up in the bottom of our freezer. I sort of used these instructions, though didn't strictly adhere to them, so I won't blame them if my cake is less than awesome, next January.