I'm making a beachy/undersea themed cake for my cousin's wedding. She wants pieces of dimensional coral on the sides of the tiers.

So my question is whether gum paste or fondant would be better to use in making the coral pieces? I've never worked with either one much and there are so many of you on here that are perfect at it.

Pleeeasse, anyone have suggestions?

I've heard of people dipping grape stems into royal icing to make coral. Not tried it myself, but its a thought. To answer your question, for sure you would need to start with gumpaste, but you would need something inside to help it hold its shape.

When I make my seaside wedding cakes, I usually pipe with royal icing, then slightly airbrush or you can use just white choc. piped. If you would like to see some examples of my seaside cakes, just e-mail me.
I'm happy to share some with you.

Coral is REALLY easy, just draw a template if you don't think you can freehand it.

Jen

I saw the greatest coral technique...of course after I finished making my coral out of royal icing and my cake was delivered! It's in www.yummyarts.com but you have to purchase the video.

Anyway, what they did was to take a deep bowel or small bucket and fill it with crushed ice. Melt some chocolate...any color you want...and pour it onto the ice. When you pull out the chocolate...you have coral!! It is very realistic looking coral and this is how I'll be doing mine from now on!

That does sound pretty Jacqui!

I use to make candles like that, pour melted wax into a square milk carton with crushed ice. Doesn't the "coral" come out in the shape of the container? Please explain. I can't imagine this for some reason.

that's a terrific idea!

Okay, so I just rewatched the video. She takes some ice and places it in her cuisinart to crush it. Place the crushed ice in a bowl and get another bowl. Place some crushed ice in the empty bowl and pour a little bit of white chocolate onto the crushed ice. Scoop up some more ice and place on top of the chocolate you just poured and let set about a minute. Remove it and you have the coolest looking coral!

To create tunnels you place a formed peice of chocolate back into the ice standing it up at an angle and pour some melted chocolate next to it and place more ice on top until set. This will make your coral bigger and it will have some tunnels in it.

If you find the coral is too big you can break it to make it fit on your cake.

She used the chocolate disks. You can brush pearl dust over it to give it some shimmer.

thanks for sharing that! that is a wonderful trick. and if you mess it up you can just eat it YUM!

I'm glad I could help!

ladyonzlake, do you find that the videos on yummyart are worth the expense?

To be honest...if you're a beginner the video's are very helpful. I've only been a member for 1 month but I'm thinking about not renewing. The only "new" thing I've learned is the "coral". I wish they had a bit more advance techniques on there and I also wished that you didn't have to pay a $20 membership per month since you're already purchasing the videos.

I bought a coral fondant mold from sugar art.
even easier!


melody