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The cake is an 11"x 9" chocolate cake that I covered in chocolate ganache. For the wood gain look of the sides I just tinted white Renshaw fondant with a little Ivory and Warm Brown gel color; mixing the colors till they gave a marbled color pattern. I rolled out the fondant and then pressed a Woodgrain fondant impression mat into the fondant to give the pattern. Next I cut 1-1/2" strips using a Wilton strip cutter, and then positioned the strips on the cake. After all the strips were in place, I dusted the textured fondant with powder food color in yellow, brown, and black. The color dusting gives the fondant "wood" a much more realistic look.
Beside the main bee box, the cake had a few other accent pieces. The first thing I made was a hive tray that would sit on top of the cake and made to look like it was being pulled from the box. For the honeycomb section I used gum paste tinted with buttercup yellow food gel and a honeycomb impression mat. I trimmed the sides and top of the honeycomb will strips of the wood-grain fondant that I stiffened with Tylose Powder, and embedded two wooded skewers into the sides to hold the tray upright on the cake.
I made the "Bee Smoker" out of white Wilton gum paste. (Don't use Satin Ice gum paste because it doesn't harden like the Wilton or Hobby Lobby brand.) The body of the smoker is just a rectangular piece of gum paste that I formed around a glass bottle. For the top section I wrapped another rectangular piece of gum paste around a funnel. For the curved handle I just formed the curly piece and allowed it to dry on its side. Once all the pieces were dry, I painted them with black food color gel mixed with Everclear. Once the black base coat was dry, I painted it again with a mixture of edible silver colored food power mixed with Everclear. When all the paint was dry, I stuck the pieces together using melt chocolate. The final touch to the smoker was the puffs of wispy cotton-ball smoke coming out of the top. (Doesn't the smoker remind you of the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz?)
For the honeycomb pieces I used gum pasted tinted with buttercup yellow food gel and a honeycomb impression mat. The little honey jar is glass OUI yoguart container filled with melted yellow candy melts mixed with a little heavy cream to make it flow.
The little bees are made with a teardrop shaped glob of buttercup yellow gum paste, 20 gauge black wire for the antenna and stinger, and wafer paper for the wings. To elevate the flying bees I used a 20 gauge silver wire, but I should have used something thicker because the weight of the bees was too much for the wire and the wire kept bending over.
So this was a unique cake to make. I hope my cousin likes it.
Happy Decorating,
Carol
