I have a customer who needs a cake for his wife's 40th birthday.  He said she likes wine and also tennis.  I am not sure how to incorporate the two.  Thinking of making a wine bottle or two in a wooden crate but not sure how to incorporate tennis into it? Probably also going to make a full sized bottle out of cake and rice krispie treats. The cake needs to feed 60 people.  Should I make two separate cakes?  A wine bottle in a box and also a tennis ball on  a separate board? I just didn't want the tennis balls to take away from the wine bottle cake. 

What about doing something tennis themed on the wine bottle label? Like giving it a name that uses tennis terms? That way it would be subtle but still incorporated. 

Thanks! Good idea. Forgot to say she likes a specific kind of wine so I am having an edible image of the label made .

What about the bottle of wine on a grassy patch next to a tennis racket and ball?  Match, set, drink? 

Good idea too! What would be the cake? the tennis racket would have to be full sized to be proportionate to wine bottle? I need to feed 60. 

Just to be clear, are you actually sure that he wants you to incorporate both themes?  Or just that either theme would be suitable?  It's worth checking!

I did a 60th birthday cake for an ex-carpenter who loved wine and cheese. I made a carpenter's tool box for the cake with all the tools made of modelling chocolate piled on the board and the toolbox filled with a bottle of wine and mod choc cheeses.

You could do the same with a tennis bag cake - bag out of cake, racquet, balls etc on the side and bottle of wine sticking out top of cake. My cake was 16" x 8" base dimensions and 4" high and fed 60ish.

Yes- He asked that I try to incorporate both themes. :)

oh! good idea! do you have a pic of the cake you did?

I'm not sure I know how to post pictures anymore, I'll add it to my gallery in a few hours with any luck!

I'm sorry I've got no clue how to upload pictures anymore and searching for help didn't help either! This website is getting me down...

OK, I've managed to upload a couple of photos, they're the most recent ones in my gallery. Hope you like them!  Feel free to ask any questions you have.

@winniemog -Wow, great cake!  Was the wine bottle cake or modeling chocolate? 

I love the cake! You did such a great job!! How did u make the bottle shiny?? I'm wondering how much cake I should use to feed 60 for the tennis bag. 

i would put the wine bottle on top of a racket -- superimpose them together --- maybe have the wine bottle a little more upright 

no I got a better one -- tennis racket laying down 2-d on the bottom, wine bottle spilling/spewing out mini tennis balls onto racket -- probably all setting on the cake -- 

The wine bottle is made of gumpaste rolled very thinly and shaped over an actual wine bottle - it took about 4 days to dry completely. Then I airbrushed it the correct colour and glazed it with a 50/50 blend of light corn syrup and vodka. This dries completely too after a few days and will not be sticky to touch.

in terms of how much cake you will need, just think about the closest cake shapes to the shape you want to end up with and make sure they provide about servings for 60 people. Eg if you're making a sausage-shaped tennis bag you could use two 9 or 10" squares and carve away the edges to give the right  shape and leave you with the equivalent of two 8" square cakes which feed 60 people - this assumes your cakes are about 4" high. On my cake, all the modelling choc tools were also edible (and eaten!) but I didn't include them in the total servings.

winniemog, you did a fantastic job on the cheese and wine bottle!!!

Thanks so much. I love cheese (and red wine too, but that's another story...) and I don't really like sweet things so I found it difficult to remind myself that this "Camembert" etc was modelling chocolate and wouldn't taste good (to me) at all!

some other ideas I came up with...what about the wine sitting in a bucket with isomalt ice? then some cheese on the board and then some tennis balls? Or what about the box sitting on top of the tennis racket with some balls on the board with some cheese also?  OR a large standing bottle(i would be scared of transporting and wouldn't even know how much cake would work to feed 50-60) and then make a wilton tennis ball(so it would be proportionate to the bottle) and have that on the board?