Saturday, January 12, 2019

Vegetable Garden Cake

A friend a work asked for a Vegetable Garden Cake for her parent's 50 Wedding Anniversary.  Here is the top of the cake.  For a person that doesn't like vegetables (me), I think they came out pretty tasty looking.


So how did I make these cuties?


The cauliflower was the first.  With a white ball of gum paste I made some marks with a bent paper clip and a large hat pin.


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Then I used a flower cutter / veiner combo to make the leaves.  At first I tried it with all five petals together, but that didn't look good so I cut off two of the petals and make two sets giving me a total of six leaves around the cauliflower head.


Lettuce was the same as the cauliflower., but with a smaller center.  In hindsight I should have put a few marks on the center to make it look more like a cluster of leaves.


Carrots were just a cone shaped wad of orange with a tuff of green sprigs on the top.  I made a hole at the top of the carrot and inserted the rolled up greenery.


I also put some marks on the carrot body using some gumpaste decorating tools just to give it some interest.


Corn was next.  Making the individual kernels of corn on the cob was super easy.  I rolled out a flat piece of yellow gum paste, and used a long narrow slicer (looks like a super long razor blade) to make indentations in the gum paste.  I didn't cut through the gum paste.  I just pressed enough to make a visible line.


Make the marks in both directions to give you tiny little cubes.  Cut a rectangle of the appropriate size for you corn and roll it up in a cylinder shape.  I cut out a piece of greenery for the tip of the corn cob, and textured the greenery with my handy veining wand.


Radishes were last.  I made a little ball of red gum paste and a smaller ball of white.


I pressed the balls together and then thinned out the white part into a narrow tip.


The greenery is just a free formed piece of green gumpaste that I made some "vein" impression on...


And then I wadded it up and stuck it into a hole I made on top of the radish.


As a final step I twisted the white tip of the radish into a little curl.


So here are all the veggies arranged on top of their bed of soil (pulverized Oreo cookies).  For the signs behind the row of veggies I cut out a thick square of gum paste and stuck in a tooth pick.  I printed out tiny pictures of the veggies and glued them to the dried gum paste signs.  I then wrote the name of the veggie on the sign with a black marker.  The border of the vegetable patch is made with my ACE Food Safe Extruder.



The cake itself is iced with a ombre of green, blue, and white.  After applying the bands of color I just  gently scraped it off the excess using a large bench scraper.  The act of scraping blends the colors together and gives the ombre effect.


Then I made some fencing out of white Mona Lisa Fondant.  I rolled out the fondant and then textured it using a wood grain impression mat.  I cut strips using a Wilton strip cutter, then I cut the picket top of the fence board using the pointed end of a heart cutter.  It is not shown here, but I also dusted the fondant boards with edible brown powdered food color to give it a weathered look and to make the wood grain stand out more.


I arranged the vertical fence boards around the cake, and then I placed the cross boards in a wonky alignment.


Final touches on the cake were a basket to hold the ears of corn, a pair of gloves, a rake and shovel, and some flowers growing up the fence.  I also make a plaque to announce the 50 years that the LaClair couple were celebrating.  I hope they like it!




Happy Decorating,

Carol



Supply List: 

Mona Lisa Fondant
ACE Food Safe Extruder
14" Cake Drum
Flower Cutter / Veiner Combo
Gumpaste Decorating Tools
Razor Slicer
Veining Wand
Large Bench Scraper
wood grain impression mat
Wilton strip cutter
heart cutter
edible brown powdered food color
Lace Impression Mat (used on the fondant covering the cake drums)
Plaque Cutter