Picket Fence Flower Cake

My Mom is an avid gardener and flowers are her special love, so for her 85th birthday I made her a cake covered in flowers.  FYI: My Mom's name is Daphne.

If you don't count the many hours that went into making the gum paste flower, then this cake was a snap to put together.  I slapped a rough layer of buttercream onto a 10", 8" and 6" cake and then stacked the three tiers.  I didn't worry about straight edges or flat tops because I knew everything would be hidden with fence pickets and flowers.  Win-Win.

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To make the pickets for the fence I mixed some tylose power with white fondant, rolled the fondant to 1/8", used a wood grain impression mat to emboss the pattern onto the fondant, cut the fondant into 1/2" wide strips, and then used the top of a star cookie cutter to make the angled cut on the top of the picket.  How easy is that?

I made a LOT of pickets.  I also dusted them with some brown powder food color to bring out the texture of the wood grain.

The first step in construction of the picket fence was to place three horizontal rails around each cake. 

After the rails were in position I started placing the individual pickets.

It was soooo easy... until I ran out of pickets and had to stop and make more.  I thought I had calculated the number of pickets I needed, but I was never very good at math.  After all the pickets were in position, I started placing the flowers.  I had tons of gum paste flowers, but like the pickets I miss-calculated and had to use a few silk flowers to fill in the blank spaces.

In addition to the cake, I also baked and made a lot of sweets for a Candy/Sweet Buffet.  I had pralines, sugar cookies, and chocolate dipped Oreo cookies, strawberries, shortbread cookies, and pretzels.  I also had cake pops, candy, and lollipops.  I had little paper bags that people could fill and take their treats home.  By the end of the party, the Candy/Sweet Bar was wiped clean.

The party was a huge hit.  Happy 85th Birthday, Mom.

Happy Decorating,

Carol

Supply List: 

Mona Lisa Fondant
Wilton Tylose Powder
Wood Grain Impression Mat
Wilton Ribbon/Strip Cutter
Brown Powder Food Color
Wilton's Buttercup Yellow Gel Color