Hi,

I am really excited! My daughter is turning 5 and I desperately want to make her a pirate mermaid cake to go with her birthday theme. I am an artist (I paint and draw). I was hoping I would be able to use these skills to make her cake. I enjoy baking and I have made many cupcakes and a few layered cakes, however, I have not done a lot of decorating besides frosting/piping and sprinkles. I would really like to use either fondant or gumpaste to create some 3D images for the cake. My concept is a round 9 or 10 inch layer cake. I want to cover most of the cake in blue buttercream frosting to make it look like waves. I already read on how to do that through searching. However, I am having difficulty figuring out if I should use gumpaste or fondant for the rest. I would like to make mermaids and on top of the cake I want a pirate ship (carved out of rice krispies), but I am not sure if I should use fondant to cover the ship and make the mermaids or not. I wanted to try the MMF recipe. Do you think this will work? Also, how far ahead can I make the 3D pieces for the cake? Will I need to plan ahead a little as far as the location and what will happen to the fondant (her party is at the waterpark hotel, so next to a pool inside)?

I really appreciate anyone who read all that! Her birthday is on Friday the 13th of April....

I made monkeys out of fondant and it's pretty easy, just think of working with clay. the problem was that it didn't dry very well. I would use a mix of gumpaste and fondant, like 50-50 ish. I'm not an expert so maybe someone else could offer better advice but I'd start working on them asap so they can start to harden. I did the monkeys a week ahead. i would cover the carved rice krispie treats with a very thin layer of buttercream and then add the fondant. I have done that and let it sit almost a week covered to protect from dust and such.