AA friends dad is celebrating his 80th birthday next week. I've been asked to make his cake. He's originally from Ireland and did own a bar at one point and I thought it would be fun to do a thatched roof cottage looking kind of cake with the name of his bar on it. Anyone have any ideas on how to get the thatched roof look with fondant? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated thanks!

Hi Lizmybit, I would use a brown coloured sugarpaste first and lay it on smoothly in the shape you want. Then using a washing up scourer - one of those coarse green ones (un-used of course) i would dab all over the sugarpaste to give it a rough texture. I would then brush on a darker brown blossom dust in a random fashion. Finally I would repeat the same step with the decorative top piece that sits over the top of the roof. Best of luck - I'm sure it will be great.

^^ that's a great idea, I would only add to mix a darker shade of brown gel colour with alcohol- get it nice and thin as a wash and brush it over with a large soft bruch once the sugarpaste/fondant has airdried. Then once totally dry use a dry brush to brush on whote petal powder as highlights, if you want harsher highlights you can add a little water but dab the brush on paper or scrap sugarpaste before applying to your cake. Cant wait to see it! I love cakes done as buildings :-)

Thanks guys!  When you say sugarpaste, do you mean gumpaste? 

ANope, it's fondant/mmf, fondant is called sugarpaste in the UK :-)