I know some of you may be tired of my posts regarding the tiki god I have been working on. I wanted to thank those of you who helped me get him done and give you a shot of how he turned out.
The Gum Paste hibiscus were a bit tricky and it took some trial and error before I was able to make a center that I was happy with. Getting the fondant on this large of a cake was not an easy task. I wound up wrapping him with it. That had its own problems as the wieght of the fondant wanted to pull itself down. As soon as it was chilled though all of the drooping stopped and he held up really well. I had a blast makeing special pieces for the 3 people who were celebrating birthdays at the party and even made each of them thier own tiki torch birthday candle to blow out. The cake went over really well and was a blast to create. TFL!
I love all the bright colours and all the little details are amazing. My fav thought are the cute tiki torches!
Great job!! I love the moment when the cake is done and you step back and you just want to high five yourself for a job well done. Hey, High five for a job well done!! Really cute cake, and I love your attention to detail, it really personalized it.
Really great cake. Your hibiscus flowers are lovely. I've only just started to learn how to make flowers and you blow me away!
Awww, Thanks everyone! This forum can be so supportive.
Its funny, I had 4 other pictures of tiki cakes printed up when I started this to use as inspiration but when I started working on the face, all of the planning just went out the window. It came down to which cutters I had that I could use. There is a giant pineapple on the back that was from a cookie cutter I have had for years. Anyway, thanks for all of your nice comments.
emcm51, The flowers were something that took some time. If I am going to do a flower that actually exists I want it to look as close to correct as possible. The stamens are alot thicker than in nature but you can only do what you can do in sugar. I tried 3 or 4 different configurations before finding something I could live with. Flowers are a blast. They are my therapy. Thanks for you comment.
I'd love to know how you did the stamens. I wasn't completely happy with the ones I made.
Tiggy2,
Ok let me try to see if I can explain it. If not maybe I can do a picture tutorial for you.
I started with the 3 pack of flower stamens you can get in the cake dec isle at Hobby Lobby. I used 2 of the 3 types one was the longer cotton type and the other is the small glittery one.
For the tips of the centers- (You will need 5 per flower) Using the cotton one I cut off about half of the hieght of the stamen tip so it was not so long then cut a piece about 1/4" long (You need enough length for them to stand up away from your center). I put them into some red/orange dye that was petal dust mixed with vodka and let them set for quite some time. Once they had soaked up the color I put them on a paper towel and sperated them.
To make the polen pieces- Cut really short segments of the glitter covered stamens and color them in a yellow mix just as with the red/orange. Pull out onto a paper towel and seperate. I use about 20 per flower.
Color some gum paste to whatever shade you want to use. I colored mine with leaf green and a bit of lemon yellow. Roll out a sausage shape that is thicker on one end. If you are using a wire this is when you insert the wire. Now using tweezers carefully insert the red/orange pieced into the ends of the sausage (the fact that they are damp helps them stick in the gum paste). Drop down to the sides and lay the piece in your hand (I rested mine between my fingers so they do not get crushed). and using tweezers insert the yellow pieces into the gum paste. Lay the centers onto soft cotton batting to dry so they do not become flat on one side.
To make the petals- Iused the green plastic viener that came with my wilton gum paste flower kit. I just laid a dime sized piece of gum paste at the base of the viener and using my thumbs I spread it out filling the viener. Remove them from the viener and once you have 5 petals you can assempble your flower. I laid mine in my palm fanning them the correct amount thn stuck the centers into the middle of the petals and flipped the flower upside down and rolled the base of the flower between my fingers to adhere the petals to the center. I then used a large egg carton to sit them in while they dried and did any fine tuning to the shape after they dried a bit. I used about a 70/30 mix of gum paste to fondant so they gave me more working time. Once dry I shaded each flower with petal dust.
If anything on this is not clear please do not hesitate to ask. I know that when I went lookig for help to make mine I got a pretty cold reception from those that I sent pm's to. I would be happy to help.
What a great project! You did a terriffic job!! The colors are so bright and perfect!! Congrats
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