Hello All!
I'm a pastry instructor and for the students' capstone dinner this year their theme is louisiana or mississippi steam boat themed. This means all of their food and decor has to fit this. I offered to donate a cake to this dinner and they want it to be like this as well. They mentioned a crawfish but I can't do that! Are there any other ideas? or pictures? I have NO IDEA!!
TIA

why don't you make a steam boat? Make sure you have a red paddle wheel, and add lots of red,white,blue flags ( I am from the south and no self respecting steam boat would be without those

http://www.juliabelle.com/images/1fade.jpg

http://paddlewheel-boat-cruises.visit-louisville.com/spirit-jefferson-steamboat.jpg

if you didn't want to do a steamboat, you might could do a food look a like cake. There's nothing more southern that frogmore stew...might be a cool cake to do a big pot with the ingredients sticking out the top!

I am from the south, and I never heard of frogmore stew. What is it? I am very curious.

I,too, have never heard of frogmore stew. If you decide not to do the steamboat, you could make an antebellum home, square cake with pillars around it.

I first thought of magnolias and yellow jessamine. They grow wild everywhere in my areas of the south.

Sorry forgmore stew has nothing to do with frogs. Its also called beaufort stew or lowcountry boil and it is so yummy. Basically you boil potatoes, sausage, corn on the cob, shrimp, and sometimes crabs as well with some old bay seasoning.

Camilas would also be a great southern flower to do and would give you great color on a cake

What about magnolias? Interestingly enough, the magnolia is the state flower for Mississippi and Louisiana (although different varieties), so perhaps you could do that?

these all seem like pointing me in the right direction but I think they want something that represents the south to people who don't really know too many details. If I thought I could do a steamboat I would but I think I would be in over my head with that one!

Is a crab "southern"?

Now what in the world do those people up there in New Yowack City know about us Southuners?! Hee! Hee! Hee!

I can't wait to see the finished product. Post it PLEASE!

Also, I would suggest making a Red Velvet Cake to make it more Southern. Scratch cake taste better but if you don't have time just do the Duncan Hines box cake.

I live in New Orleans.........you can either do a........

-Mardi Gras cake (which there are many pictured on this site)
-Magnolia cake for the state flower
-Beach theme for the coast of Mississippi
-Do a cake with an oak tree on it as they grow
-do a cake in the shape of a fleur de lis as that is our symbol for our french heritage
-do either state flag cake
-you can do a New Olreans flag

there are many possibilities!!!!!

Also........

-the MS coast is full of casino's........you can do a casino cake

I agree that a magnolia cake would be Southern and maybe the easiest idea. I think of crawfish boils when I think MS/LA...sure you don't want to sculpt some crawfish and corn out of fondant? Might be fun.

(If you google image "magnolia cake" you might even find a site that shows how to make the magnolia or if you have time, you could order a gumpaste magnolia.)

One other thing...do you do chocolate transfers? An easy thing to do would be to make a cake with a border of crawfish made out of chocolate transfers. Just google image to find a good picture of a red crawfish (I just saw one googling "crawfish boil cake"...first image)... there is a link for instructions for how to do a chocolate transfer on my blog (click on my profile for the link) but there is also lots of information here on CC about how to do a CT. You could do simple images of a steamboat (when I want to find a simple image I google using the term silhouette...for intance, "steamboat silhouette" and that sometimes gets me what I need...)

oooooo good ideas!