Hi Everyone, I'm making a shopping bag cake for my granddaughter's 18th birthday and I need some help. I want to make a large, med. and a small bag. Can someone tells me what size square pans they use and how they cut them???? I'm sitting here looking at my 6" & 8" square perplexed!!!
Thanks!!!

I've made 2 shopping bags so far...and for both I used a sheet cake pan and then cut it in half or thirds (depending on the size) and stacked them. You might even need more than one sheet cake depending on the size of shopping bag you want. I used a real one for a template so I could gauge the height and width better. Hope that helps!

I have made a few and I use sheet pans. I have a Nordstroms cake in my pictures and I used two half sheet pans cut in 3rds. I stacked the first 3 layers on top of each other then put 4 dowels in and put a cake cardboard on top that was trimmed on the sides with the v cuts for the bag then added the next 3 layers. I sculpted the cake to look like a shopping bag, then iced and covered with fondant. I put a couple of dowels thru the whole thing because it is pretty top heavy at that point. Hope this helps.

Thanks for your help Mama & Cakeladie. I looked at your shopping bags and I hope mine turn out as well. Thanks again.

I always like to use graph paper to map out any 3D cakes. I draw out the dimensions, then cut the shapes (i.e. bottom and sides of shopping bag) so I have a good visual of the finished cake. I use 1 sq. per inch, I don't need it to be actual size, just to scale.

I have another question. Do you cut the fondant to the size you need to cover the bag and then join each side with royal icing??? Also do I need to let the fondant panels dry for a day or two? Thanks!

I also made a couple of shopping bags (see my photos). I baked them in a sheet pan and cut them into thirds and started stacking. I made fondant/gumpaste panels in advance and then used melted chocolate to glue them together. It was a little tricky since the panels didn't match up perfectly, but I used melted chocolate at the seams to cover up any gaps. Melted chocolate sets up really quickly so it works better than royal icing. Good luck.

Well, on my first attempt I THOUGHT I had all the measurements figured out for the stripes on my VS bag, but when I got half way done with putting them on I could tell my measurements were off. I had to peel them off and start over, which took frosting off with so I had to re-frost, re-chill, and re-measure. I was running out of time so I couldn't let the stripes sit and harden up much before putting them on the cake, but I would definitely suggest it to anyone else giving it a try.
On my 2nd & smaller VS bag I covered the whole thing in the lighter shade of pink fondant and then put the darker pink stripes on top of that. MUCH easier, but not quite the same effect.