i have a cake that i am doing for my husbands birthday, it isnt till august but i like to plan early esp. this one. i want to make him a cake that looks like a reef fish tank, he loves reef tamks we have six in our house. i want the cake to as edible as possible, i think i have the basic structure of it down, i think i am ging to layer two 9x13 sheet cakes and poss. tort them then for the back i was going to take another 9x13 sheet and lay it length wise on the back and dowel them together horizontally. the fish iam going to make of colorflow and buttercream icing some of the coral will be made of choc molding clayand fondant and maybe some candies. the only problem that i have come across so far is the reef rock im not sure how i should go about doing this. i was thinking of maybe making large oddshaped cake balls and painting on them with dusts and food gels. i have attached a picture of some reef rocks so if anyone can take a look and maybe give their inputs on how i should go about doing this i would appreciate it. sorry this is sooooo long. thanks.

How about rice crispy treat rocks? They may give you the stability you need to make them in the funky shape. You could cover them with a gray or dark colored buttercream and then, with a clean sponge or paint brush use black gel color to make speckles for the holes.

Or to keep the texture of the crispy treats you could airbrush them...

Or you could just add the coloring to the melted marshmallows when you are mixing them. I would try it this way first I think. Use black and brown in the mix. The texture could be really cool. I would still go back and add speckles with a paint brush for more depth.

HTH!

Post pics!

you know i didnt even think of that, but that sounds like that might work and be alot easier then what i was going to try, thanks alot.

I've never tried these but how about sponge candy for the rocks. I know they look like rocks with all they're holes and crevices.

oo oo oo, I just saw a program last night on the foodnetwork or was it the travel channel, o well, no biggy, but... they showed a chef making a reef inspired sugar sculpture and all he did was take a bowl of sugar and poured some hot sugar syrup (the same recipe for hard candy) like you would "sand cast" as candle covered it with the granulated sugar and an hour later badabing..... he had a piece of "coral" Hope that helps.

I was just looking through the book "Complete Cake Decorating" and saw a mermaid cake with the mermaid sitting on chocolate covered popcorn that I could see working as coral as well! All they did was melt the chocolate and mix the popcorn, stirring to cover. Just spoon into place.

HTH!
Mirjana

I can think of two ways you can do this. One would be ice and chocolate. I've seen where you can fill a glass or container with ice, then pour chocolate over it. It runs between the ice and hardens up.

Another way is edible coral made with melted sugar and water plus royal icing. Here is some directions for it...
http://members.nuvox.net/~zt.proicer/cakepict/spongeshells.jpg

I did something simalar to it on my Nemo Look Alike cake that is in my photos.

thanks evryone for all the replies i checked out the link, its also something to consider, i really like the rice krispies idea. thank you all soooo much you are all very helpful.

teassugar, awesome idea with the chocolate and water! I'm definately going to try that!

cakepro
i found the program that chaptlps was talking about i came across it on accident, it was unwrapped episode: sugar and spice. it was reaaly cool, iam going to have to give it a try. hope this helps.

Awesome, thank you!!

Interesting timing...tonight's episode of Sugar Rush showed that exact same technique. What a neat thing to do!

I'm going to have to watch for that Sugar & Spice episode.

Could you use rock candy?

okay its been awhile but that cake im doing for my husband is next week. and i think im going to use the rice krispies everyone was talking about only prob now is that i want to keep the texture that the rice krispies give and i just got a new airbrush so i really want to use it, how would i go about making the stone color you think. maybe super white than lightly over it with black??? i do need to have pinkish purple color on "rock krispies for the coral line alge" have any ideas please let me know. sorry so long!!!