Tuna Texas Birthday Cake

My new boss' birthday was coming up and she is from Texas. I had a few bits of cake left over from a previous cake this week and found a suitable cake design in one of my cake books to copy. I didn't have time to make the thorns, which I think are the best feature of the original. The thorns would also hide my bad piping. This was chocolate cake with chocolate pastry cream filling. The icing is cream cheese buttercream piped on with a star tip (I definitely need more practice), It is sitting on a base of crumbled pecan sandies cookies to replicate real sand. The cake was delish!