Showing posts with label wood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wood. Show all posts

Wednesday, 23 September 2015

Sunflowers, Hessian & Vintage Lace Cake


I designed this Vintage Sunflower cake for a friends 50th birthday, the brief was "up to you to feed 100 party goers!"




The invitations had a sunflower theme so I used that for my inspiration. I thought two deep cakes would be better than one huge one so opted for 6" deep 10" square with an 6" deep 8" round on the top.

I made the sunflowers using yellow flower paste for the petals and brown for the centres, when dried a good dusting with darker shades of yellow and some orange was added to the petals and darker brown to the centres before steaming to set the colour and achieve a more natural finish.

This flower choice does some what limit your colour options but I decided on a mink brown and sage green colour scheme to blend together rather than to clash.
White sugar paste had brown and a dash of pink food colour added to achieve the right shade of mink and spruce green was added to ivory sugar paste for the sage green colour.

A wood effect iced cake drum helps to draw the eye away from the dark flower centres making them less obvious and obtrusive. (there is a video on this blog showing how to achieve the wood effect)

Edible Hessian and Vintage lace was was achieved with "edible lace & moulds" after letting this dry over night the Hessian was dusted with shades of brown and beige for a realistic look.

I draped one piece over the top tier, the other around the base of the bottom tier.
For a more feminine look I added a double edged decorative lace and edible buttons to the bottom and a taller flat edged lace around the base of the top tier.

Bunting was made out from pieces of left over Hessian cut into triangles with letters added to spell out a birthday message, attached with piped string and more vintage edible buttons.


Tuesday, 14 July 2015

How To Create A Wood Effect With Sugar Paste

This tutorial shows you how to use a wood grain impression mat to give maximum effect on sugar paste/fondant icing.
Adding some colour helps bring out the grain and any added detailing for that WOW factor.
Why not give it a go, it's surprisingly simple?



Teddy brown "Roll n Cover" sugar paste is a great base for a natural wood effect and is very easy to use. It takes on detailing well and remains pliable for longer so you have more time to create your masterpiece.
Dark brown paste food colour mixed with rejuvenating spirit, painted on with a brush is how the detailing is enhanced. Changing a wood effect in to a WOW effect.