Okay my boss just asked me to make a cake for a "cousins cocktail party" that she is throwing in March. She is having all her cousins over for a visit with her brother who is going back to maine. No other occasion. YIKES!!! I've thrown around the idea of a family tree with the names on the leaves and at the bottom write "Our branches may be far apart but we'll always be close at heart" dumb right? Also since she likes wine/tuscan I thought a cake with grapes and write on it "what a great bunch!!!" Again I am not completely thrilled with the ideas and I think the cake has to be more elegant than comical. Any help would be appreciated since there are very few ideas for a family tree. One last note - do you think its possible to do a vertical tree out of royal icing or fondant? maybe gumpaste althought I've never worked with it. Thanks again for looking!!

i like the grapes idea!
or how about a map of with pushpins pinning little scraps with names of all the cousins where they live? the brother moving to Maine can have an arrow from the place where he lives pointing towards maine... everything can be done with fondant

Well, my boss went with the grapes idea. So that's the direction I'll be headed. The map cake sounds cool - I think I'll use that for my next family get together as my one sister is in maryland and the other is in florida.

Thanks for the feedback.