The Bake More: Rustic/Weathered Basket of Tulips

Friday, June 22, 2018

Rustic/Weathered Basket of Tulips - Cake

I love it when a disaster waiting to happen turns out pretty well. I made this cake for my mom's birthday back in March.

I had planned on filling the basket with gumpaste roses I had made a few weeks earlier, but once inside the basket the flowers just looked too wimpy. Not enough color and not nearly large enough. As a last minute fix I used some fresh tulips I had bought for my mom's birthday.

Besides the panic over the flower, this rustic, weathered looking basket was pretty easy to make. It starts of course with a cake that I sliced in an oblong shape.

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After frosting the cake I started on the "wooden slats" that make up the basked. To get the weathered look, I used a wafer paper technique that is super quick and easy. First you need some funky colored fondant. I wanted the basket to be gray so I tinted some fondant gray and then added some left over brown and yellow fondant I have from other cakes.

Next I cut the fondant to match the 8x11" wafer paper. Wafer paper is made from potato starch, water and vegetable oil. It is considered edible, but I wouldn't eat it. I actually peeled off the wafer paper covered fondant and discard it before serving the cake.

After cutting the fondant to match the shape of the wafer paper, you start to dampen the paper with water. Add the water slowly till the wafer paper starts to buckle and warp.

When the paper is wet enough, take a small rolling pin and roll it over the paper. The rolling action will stretch the fondant underneath and cause the wet wafer paper to rip and tear. The more you rip the paper, the more weathered the final wood with look. Note that over a few hours the water in the wafer paper will evaporate and the wafer paper will dry and crinkle even more.

When the wafer paper looks ripped enough, just cut the fondant into strips to fit the height of your cake

Next start sticking the strips to the side of the cake. See those tulips in the background? They are going to be sacrificed for this cake!

I added horizontal pieces at the top and bottom of the basket.

For the handle I just cut a long strip of the weathered fondant and let it dry overnight on top of a cake pan. Sadly the handle wasn't stiff enough to stand up on its own, so I added some thick wire and secured the wire to the handle using more weathered fondant.

As a last step in making the weathered fondant look more realistic I made what looked like nail heads at the top of each board and where the handle connected to the basket. I just pushed a sharp tool into the fondant, and added a little black and brown powdered food coloring to give it that extra ump.

At this point I tried placing the gumpaste flowers I had pre-made made for this cake, but they looked horrible. They were way too small, and I only had about 1/3 as many as I needed. In desperation I decided to sacrifice my mom's bouquet of tulips for her cake. I wasn't sure if tulips were poisonous, or if they had any chemicals on them, so I put some parchment paper on top of the cake to protect it from any nasty stuff. I also added another piece of weathered fondant to hide the cut ends of the tulips.

So here is the finished cake. Can you tell that it is cake? Surprisingly none of the guest at the party realized what it was. A lot of people gave my mom flowers for her birthday, so everyone thought the cake was another bouquet of flower. How cool is that!