im planning to make a cake with hot air balloons ontop. one balloon will be half inflated laying down with the basket and one will be up right and fully inflated. iv been advised to use gumpaste as this will go solid but does any one have any idears how i could make the shape of the balloons or what i could use as a mold??

also how long should i leave gumpaste to go hard before painting?
i will be attaching the two together somehow the balloon and basket but havent yet figured that one

Thanks for any help

that's a tough one, do you want the balloon that is floating to be hollow? I would suggest you carve Styrofoam into the inflated balloon shape and cover with fondant. This way you won't have to worry about breakage and the foam would give you something to stick skewers into to mimic the ropes that hang from the balloon to the basket

the balloon laying on the ground I think you could form out of a rolled piece of fondant or gumpaste

hope that helps.

Hi, thats a brilliant idear with stirofoam would just be the carving bit that would be tricky, i made one last year but a upright one with cake and my carving wasnt brilliant looked more like a chef hat (in my photos)

With the stirofooam that would be good like you say because i could make a normal square out of gumpaste and place some clear dowels inside to be the poles and use flower wire as the ropes as they are quite thin and the stirofoam should hold hopefully cuz i could dig the dowel into it.

good luck, post the pics when you're done