Hi all,

I've been recommended this forum from a friend, and have been amazed about the amount of info on here!

I've always been a cup cake person, even made wedding cup cakes for some family members, and planned to do the same for my wedding (which is AGES away - 15th October 2011, as we're building and everything). But my fiance found a photo of a cake-cake on the web and decided that's what he wanted for our wedding cake, and we absolutely LOVE the cake, so even though our wedding is far away, we aren't going to be changing our minds.

The problem is that I would still like to make the cake, but I have no experience with making full cakes apart from a couple of bundt cakes, and then recently I made a ute cake for his 21st, and that's about it... So I'm a bit nervous about it, but luckily I have 2 years to prepare to be able to make it, and I was hoping you could please help me.

A photo of the cake is below:



What needs to be done to make this cake? (Apart from the obvious cooking the cake and covering it with fondant but.) And I have no idea how the black flowers are done - I hope it isn't from directly painting.... And if it is, is there a short-cut to get this done? Like printing it on edible icing?

Also, what techniques should I practice to be able to make this cake? I'm confident with the flowers, and I've done heaps of flower arranging. But can I arrange them on dry oasis with cardboard underneath it and leave it on the cake? Or is that unhygenic?

Oh and it might help to say I'm from Australia (kind of in Perth) and I've been told that putting buttercream between the cake on fondant doesn't work so well as it melts, so when using mud cakes (which I think we'll use as we both don't like fruit cake) they use a layer of ganache instead as it sets better. And they say it's fine for about 1 weeks out of the fridge, but I'm concerned with the cream in it, does anyone have experience with this? And doing a cake making class is very difficult as I work doing FIFO (Fly in fly out) so I spend 11 days in a fortnight in a Newman (a town in the outback) and only 3 days in Perth (the city) and after a lot of Googling, most classes either a. aren't on when I'm there, and b. need me there every week when I'm only in Perth every 2 weeks.

Thank you in advance

Edit: Oops forgot to add - how do you transport it too? I'm used to cupcake boxes.... Would you put each level in tupperware and then put it together at the venue?

The flowers look to be sugar (gumpaste/sugarpaste....). It does look like direct painting. It could be done with edible image...maybe print the flowers, cut them out individually and attach them then paint the vines directly on it (or paint the vines then attach the indivually cut, pre-printed flowers). Another idea would be to get a stamp for the flowers and use possibly airbrush paint instead of regular ink or an impression type cutter and impress the design on the sides and then paint following the impressed lines.

The roses...once made will keep indefinitely if dried completely before storing. There are oodles of tutorials on youtube.com for making them or get one of the many instruction books.

https://www.paper-source.com/images/detail/871303.jpg
http://www.thehobbyhouse.co.uk/images/thumbnails/t_1069.jpg
http://rubber-stamp-shack.com/heart_soul/day_lily_small.JPG

The stamps that have things on them that you don't want, either trim off the undesired parts (stems, extra leaves...) or just 'ink' (with edible colors like airbrush colors) the parts you wish to stamp.

Just a note...some sites offer unmounted, food safe stamps...do check first if you plan to use them.

I think painting black onto a white cake is one of the most difficult things there is in cake decorating. I think you are really biting off too terrible much....even a really experienced cake decorator could have problems with this.....my advice is to have a professional make it for you and don't put all that stress on yourself on a day that should be YOUR DAY.......just a little nanna advice....its free..good luck

Wow thank you to all the replies and the PMs I got - I didn't expect to get them so fast!

Do you think it would be possible to do it with silk flowers instead? And arrange them with oasis? It would be so time consuming making that many flowers...

Those stamps are nice! I had a PM saying that it's hard getting edible images to stick, how would you do it? The stamp idea is good too! It will give it a nice effect.

May I ask why painting black onto white is so difficult? Perhaps an edible image (if I could get it to stick) would be easier...

Or is there another alternative that will give the effect of the black flowers? Such as putting lace on?

If you are able to get pesticide free roses from your florist, use real ones...

Silk flowers would look equally as beautiful (I have issues with the chemicals used in them to maintain their appearance and don't know if they'll keep their beauty if washed...but if a barrier could be in place to keep them from coming in contact with the surfaces of the cake, I see no problem using them. All that is an individual call though.)

I think painting black on white isn't as much difficult as it is stressful...cleaning up mistakes made is difficult....but with that design...stick another flower there .

If you're able, get some fondant, a stamp, airbrush paint and a piece of thin foam. cover a dummy with fondant (wanna practice on the shape you'll be doing the real thing on...curved(press a couple of times on paper then try it on your dummy)...it doesn't have to be thick... . Put the piece of thin foam into a same sized, flat container (if it has a lid, all the better...it'll keep the airbrush paint from drying out between practicing) and moisten the foam with the airbrush paint.

An edible image will stick to fondant as long as the area is moistened (LIGHTLY) (I use water/piping gel mixture). It won't look like the picture above...there'll be the edges of the images as well as the difference in color between the image and the fondant...

Because if you make any mistakes on black on white it will stick out like a sore thumb....I am also quoting Buddy Valastro who said its very difficult because you can;t mess up ...I am paraphrasing..