But in the end it wasn't too bad because I found images of the creatures that were brighter and happier looking than the ones in the book.
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To make Max and the Wild Things, I printed the images on regular paper, cut them out, glued them onto thinly rolled gumpaste, and then trimmed the gumpaste to allow a 1/8" border around the printout. The gumpaste backing kept the non-food safe printout away from the cake, and the gumpaste also protected the image and kept it from absorbing moisture.
Originally I printed the image on wafer paper so everything would be "edible", but the image didn't transfer well onto the wafer paper. There was too much bleeding and the image just looked a little blurry.
To glue the printout to the gumpaste I used an Adhesive Dot Roller that is marketed for paper crafts. The dots worked great because they go on without a mess and the sticky dots held the paper to the gumpaste without getting either one wet.
Then I just trimmed the gumpaste to fit the cutout image, leaving a 1/8" gap of gumpaste extending beyond the image.
Next I made the sailboat. I cut out the sail from white gumpaste, and then cut out the body of the ship using gumpaste tinted red.
I used a bamboo skewer as the mast of the boat, but the skewer wouldn't stick to the gumpaste so I had to glue it with superglue. I also let the boat dry on top of a cake dummy so it would have a curved shape.
As the final step I brushed the sail with yellow and brown petal dust, and brushed the boat with brown and black dust.
Next I made the crown. I cut it from yellow tinted gumpaste, and wrapped it around a tapered drinking glass to dry, Once it was dry I brushed it with gold petal dust to make it shimmer, and I added faux fir trim to the base.
Next came the stacking of the cakes. The bottom 10" tier is covered in white ganache. I wasn't worried about getting a smooth finished because I wanted a wild, rustic look. The middle tier is covered in navy buttercream that I textured by dragging the back of a spoon diagonally across the still soft buttercream. I also stuck tiny white sugar pearls in the buttercream to represent the stars in the night sky. The top tier is a Styrofoam dummy that I covered in fondant cutouts. It it supposed to look like the chest feathers of the Bird Wild Thing, but I think something was lost in translation.
After stacking, I started to place my gumpaste figures. First I positioned the sail boat and dragon on the middle tier.
Next I made some trees out of brown fondant and some waves out of strips of blue fondant. I smeared a little white buttercream on the waves to make the white caps.
Then the leaves went on the trees. I used a daisy shaped fondant cutter, and then cut out each petal to form a leaf. It was not as bad/time consuming as it seams... I only cut out about 50 leaves because I didn't want things to look too cluttered.
After the leaves went on I placed Max and the Wild Things on the bottom tier. To make the "grass" border around the bottom tier I used the smallest daisy cutter and then folded the daisy in half before placing it at the base. Then just a few tiny yellow flower to break up all that green. I also added some light blue waves to the middle tier because the waves I had on there looked too dark. I didn't do it on purpose but the color of the fondant waves matched the color of the buttercream exactly. The colors were so close that instead of looking like choppy waves, it looked like the buttercream was falling off the side of the cake!!! Adding the light blue waves fixed the problem.
So here is the final cake. From start to finish it took about 10 hours to assemble and decorate the cake. (I baked the cakes ahead of time, and I made the gumpaste figures the day before.) I think I'm getting a little faster, but for me cake decorating is still a long and arduous process.
Happy Decorating,
Carol
Supply List:
Mona Lisa Fondant
Gumpaste
14" Cake Drum
Royal Blue and Black Wilton Food Color Gel (royal blue with a touch of black makes navy)
Adhesive Dot Roller
Yellow and Brown petal dust
Gold petal dust
Daisy shaped fondant cutter
