my little brother wants me to make him a cake with this picture on top...http://i672.photobucket.com/albums/vv89/mystiicdesigns/cake%20stuff/lightningandsnow-closeup.png for his birthday this weekend. the cake will be a 11x15 sheetcake. My question is, i have done colorflow icing peices before but they were ALOT smaller... im wondering if anybody has any tips for me on doing a colorflow piece that large and also, i seem to have problems with the colorflow bleeding once they are put on the cake, idk if the buttercream breaks it down or what, i was wondering if anybody knew any tips on how to stop that from happening...
please help asap, the cake is due this saturday (April 17th 2010) and i want to make this colorflow asap so it has time to dry! thank you!
-Cheyenne[/url]

I can't help with doing one that size, but I can help with the other question. Yes, the buttercream will make the colorflow piece start to disintegrate. I found that out the hard way! Someone suggested very gently turning the colorflow piece over, painting the back with white chocolate and allowing it to dry, then placing it on the BC cake.

I've made a large color flow piece, not quite as large as what you are attempting, and I inserted flat coffee stirrers (Starbucks) so when I pulled the piece off the wax paper, I had a way to insert into the cake.

Unless you really want to do the colorflow technique...why not use an edible image?

The biggest I have done is about an 8in circle. The problem I see with going big is getting it off the backing in one piece.

As far as bleeding, when you are doing dark colors, such as dark outlines you want to let the outlines dry a hour or two before actually filling it in. This will help keep the black from bleeding into the other colors of the piece.

i did end up doing the huge colorflow piece, and after having about 4 heart attacks taking the wax paper off and putting onto the cake, this is how it turned out
http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1950383[/url]

It turned out perfect! I love the vibrant colors -- great job!

Wow! Cake looks GREAT!

Thank you!!!

OK, so I just found this thread. How in the world did you manage to get such a large piece off the paper and onto the cake? I've tried small ones and had them crumble to bits almost instantly!

If your color flow pieces crumble, you've done something wrong. Color flow can be really strong if you pipe your lines correctly, have the correct consistency of icing, and puddle up your pieces well. Also, you always pull the paper out from under the bottom of the piece, never pull the piece itself.

I always use 1.5x the amount of meringue powder in the batch of royal icing when doing color flow for extra strength.

I'm with CakePro, it shouldn't crumble. Where the lines completely piped in, connecting? How thick was the fill in? Did you fill in the sections completely? How long did you let them dry?

I like doing mine on plastic page protectors. They pop right off of them.