3D 2nd place 6
Tropicalia
by Elizabeth Marek @lizzomarek · submitted Nov 3, 2014 · 2014 contest
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Description
I chose this design because it's actually one of my favorite threadless t-shirts that I own! I actually wanted to create this last year but wasnt sure how I would create the structure and the flying butterflies but this year I had a few tricks up my sleeve hehe
I decided to go with a box cake because I wanted to make some different colors so the inside of the cake matched the outside. My scratch cake recipe is off-white and I wanted the colors to really pop!
I wanted to use as much cake as possible so I kept my structure to a heavy base board, pvc pipe and some cardboard rounds to support the base of the cake, and the jaw area. Thats it! No crazy structure here lol
My cakes are filled with American buttercream and covered in a mixture of white and milk chocolate ganache then covered with a 50/50 mixture of LMF fondant and sweetastic modeling chocolate. The reason I like working with 50/50 is it captures detail a lot better than just straight fondant and you can still airbrush it without beading up with the added fondant.
The sculpting of the cake took quite a while. I used scraps that I cut off to fill in the cheek area, and any low spots that I felt needed to be a little bigger.
Detailing the tiger took the longest. The only tools I used was a modeling tool and a ball tool. This was by far my favorite part. I event detailed parts of the cake that weren't going to be in the shot lol. I really love making all those little details and fiddly pieces.
I decided to throw in a special effect with my paint. I love the bright colors of the tiger so I decided instead of using regular food color I used my glow in the dark food color from couturecakes.com.au/essentials/colours/fluoro-glow-in-the-dark.html
That way there is a secondary dimension to the cake!
I made the eye flowers and butterflies out of gelatin, more glow in the dark food color and a couple of LED lights. I suspended the butterflies from a babies mobile over the head of the tiger so they would "Flutter" around the head.
I hope you enjoyed this process and there is a time lapse video of me detailing the tiger as well as a short video of it glowing in the dark. VIVA TROPICALIA!
I decided to go with a box cake because I wanted to make some different colors so the inside of the cake matched the outside. My scratch cake recipe is off-white and I wanted the colors to really pop!
I wanted to use as much cake as possible so I kept my structure to a heavy base board, pvc pipe and some cardboard rounds to support the base of the cake, and the jaw area. Thats it! No crazy structure here lol
My cakes are filled with American buttercream and covered in a mixture of white and milk chocolate ganache then covered with a 50/50 mixture of LMF fondant and sweetastic modeling chocolate. The reason I like working with 50/50 is it captures detail a lot better than just straight fondant and you can still airbrush it without beading up with the added fondant.
The sculpting of the cake took quite a while. I used scraps that I cut off to fill in the cheek area, and any low spots that I felt needed to be a little bigger.
Detailing the tiger took the longest. The only tools I used was a modeling tool and a ball tool. This was by far my favorite part. I event detailed parts of the cake that weren't going to be in the shot lol. I really love making all those little details and fiddly pieces.
I decided to throw in a special effect with my paint. I love the bright colors of the tiger so I decided instead of using regular food color I used my glow in the dark food color from couturecakes.com.au/essentials/colours/fluoro-glow-in-the-dark.html
That way there is a secondary dimension to the cake!
I made the eye flowers and butterflies out of gelatin, more glow in the dark food color and a couple of LED lights. I suspended the butterflies from a babies mobile over the head of the tiger so they would "Flutter" around the head.
I hope you enjoyed this process and there is a time lapse video of me detailing the tiger as well as a short video of it glowing in the dark. VIVA TROPICALIA!
Baker’s site: www.artisancakecompany.com
