This was a fun project.  I ran into a couple of hiccups.  For the blend on the dripping frosting, even though I expanded the blend, made sure everything was ungrouped and just plain paths, when I attempted the crop - all of the blend elements disappeared.  Tried several times but could never get it to work, so I just used the donut shape as a clipping mask.  The other wierd thing I didn't notice until I was getting ready to print to the web - the knocked out holes in the middle  read as transparent, but the background color can not be seen behind them.  Weird.  But what a great project to practice techniques on!