Hi everyone, I finally got my first big order and now I'm almost peeing in my pants. It's a safari theme party and I've been asked to make a cake to compliment the theme.

Problem: I can't mold the animals to go on it (cos I do not know how), so should I use plastic animals? Or should I have a go? The party planner's a friend of mine and her cakes are EXCELLENT, which make me even more nervous.

Help!!!

I would buy little animals, I wouldn't risk molding them if you don't know how. You can still make the cake look great even if the animals aren't edible! You could have broen sugar for sand, have some palm trees with a little monkey swinging in there..

Could you pipe them with BC? Do a search in the gallery for safari or animals. I am sure you will find lots of inspiration!

HTH, Kat

I am pretty new to all of this too...But, Wilton has that safari animal looking cake on their yearbook..maybe you can use their instructions as a guide?? Not really sure if this helps you or not...Sorry.

Deep breaths....whew. You do have some time for this right? Why not cruise through the gallery? There are a lot of great ideas. Are there any specific parameters you need to meet? I did a Jungle party once and make the cake of just a crocodile. Not sure if you need to include all the safari animals or no.

Have you ever played with MMF? If you have enough time to practice with before the cake is due, I'd encourage it. It's very fun and the kids will love eating it. Its not too hard either to make animals especially if you aren't going to for the terribly realistic look.

Good luck and again take some deep breaths. Smile, this is cake decorating, its fun!

--Christy O.

I like to make a simple sketch of the cake and have it approved by the person the cake is for. Make sure they are ok with the plastic animals before you go forward. Making palm trees using pretzels sticks with piped leaves looks cute and I use crushed vanilla wafers rather than sugar for the sand.

Don't get your knickers in a twist over this one. We are here to help.

Get some candy molds and some colored candy melts. Paint the details onto the mold with some melted candy and a soft brush. Allow to cool completely, then fill with the background color.

Alternately, go to the craft store and get a book on clay animals. Make chocolate clay (see recipe section) using colored candy melts in lieu of the chocolate. Paint with melted chocolate as needed.

Then kick back, relax, check your undies, and call it a day.

And don't forget to send us pictures!

Theresa

if you want to try molding the animals- do a search for sculpy or primo clay- its the same shapes and then do it with fondant- i just did a baby and it was no where near as bad as i figured it would be- also i have a book called the essential cake decorating guide by thunderbay press and it has step by step safari animals and a safari cake.if you can get your hands on it ( ive seen it on e-bay cheap)


but... i dont think there is anything w2rong with buying the animals- do what you are comfortable with!!

Firstly search here always great for inspiration secondly I would forget plastic animals and thirdly if she is so good why has she asked you.....if she is capable. Not being rude just curious.... I would never every dream of asking someone else...

I swear this place is magical. I can feel myself de-stressing just reading your posts! In fact, I feel my knickers untwisting already .. lol

Thanks. I'm going to try my hand at molding this evening, and if all is not well by Friday, I shall take myself off to Toys'r'us for some plastic ones. She did say plastic animals were fine, but I want to try my hand at molding cos I know the party planner is going to do a cake for her as a freebie and she will definitely have molded animals on that!

My word, don't I sound competitive!

If they're okay with plastic you may want to go that route and then you can really concentrate on making the cake and background design superb!!

I once made royal icing animals that came out well!! I did it like a transfer and put wax paper down over a plate that my daughter had and copied them.

Did the same with the palm trees... pretzel sticks and then "glued" royal icing leaves onto the top, which I piped over a small ball to give them a curved look over the trunk.

good luck and have fun!!

The 2006 Wilton Cake Decorating Book had some really cute animals on the cover. They looked pretty easy to make.

The book Figure Piping Ideas for Cupcakes and Larger Cakes has some wonderful and easy to follow instructions for making piped animals. I used his instructions for my monkey cookies:

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules/coppermine/albums/userpics/59041/cl_cookie.jpg

Give modeling or piping a try before you resort to plastic, I'd say. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised, and will have a lot of fun!

Go to the store and buy some Attends..take a deep breath...you'll do fine!I can't wait to see the picture.

Thank you all soo much. I get on to it tomorrow, and I'll post pics of the cake on this thread.

Try finding coloring book pics of animals & then using choc. candy melts, tape wax paper over them & pipe inside the lines. I also used cookies for bears & leopards. Palm trees out of pretzel rods with friut roll ups for leaves (sour apple) As long as your willing to try I'm sure any of the ideas you get here will help & you will be proud of the outcome. Good Luck! I don't know how to put a link in here for my jungle cake but I guess you can just click on "my photos" & see it. Also as someone else mentioned just type in your search in the gallery here at CC
Leigh-Anne

The whimsical bakehouse has a fantastic jungle theme cake in it and they did it using chocolate transfers. : )

You will totally impress with this cake, it's amazing and it's totally something you could do. : )

Chocolate transfers are the way to go!! : )

There's a really cute jungle cake on the Wilton Website. It is under web only projects or something. I think it is so cute I'm going to make it for my son's first birthday!