I am planning to make an American Flag to drape over a cake which will have a 3-D Liberty Bell on top. What suggestions do you all have on how to make the flag? Is it possible?
I would just make one out of fondant and drape it.
I agree. That will work. I made one last year for a 4th of July cake. It was very easy. I used a rectangle of white fondant and added the red stripes and the blue area with stars and then just draped it over the tiers on the cake. If you want to see how it looked it's in my photos.
Your cake sounds as if it will be every eye-catching! Good luck with the flag!
Grammasue
Could also get an edible image of a flag and layer it over fondant cut it out and drape it.
You all are so awesome. All I could think of was cutting strips of fondant or chocolate clay and trying to somehow roll them together while trying to retain the straight lines.
grammasue and sweetresults thanks for such great ideas.
For those who have not seen grammasue's cake, you gotta check it out. It's awesome!
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=coppermine&file=displayimage&meta=allby&uname=GRAMMASUE&cat=0&pos=25
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=coppermine&file=displayimage&meta=allby&uname=GRAMMASUE&cat=0&pos=26
I checked to see the cost and sizes available for edible images. Wal-Mart sells them for $5.00 but the largest size they have is about a 7" x 9". I also checked at Sam's but they will not sell it without a cake 
If I made the flag out of fondant, could I make it ahead of time and just keep in covered in Saran Wrap? The cake is for Tuesday and I would like to make the flag on Saturday if possible.
I'm not sure if it would dry out too much or not?!? I've made small things a couple of days ahead and kept them in a zip lock bag to keep them from drying, but something as large as a flag - I'm just not sure. If you used the Press-n-seal wrap (I don't know the brand) and covered the flag with that and sealed all around it - it might work? If you have the time on Saturday and you are going to be pressed for time on Tuesday, then it might be worth a shot! You never know til you try!!!
Let us know how it turns out, if you decide to make ahead.
Good luck!!!
I made one last year for a 4th of July cake. It was very easy. I used a rectangle of white fondant and added the red stripes and the blue area with stars and then just draped it over the tiers on the cake. If you want to see how it looked it's in my photos.
You cake is beautiful!! Are the red stripes painted?
I made one last year for a 4th of July cake. It was very easy. I used a rectangle of white fondant and added the red stripes and the blue area with stars and then just draped it over the tiers on the cake. If you want to see how it looked it's in my photos.
You cake is beautiful!! Are the red stripes painted?
Thank you! The stripes aren't painted. I cut them out, brushed the back with a damp brush, and attached to the white rectangle.
Thanks Grammasue ~ I think I'll give that a try. If it works - Great! If not - I'll just make another one. If I have my Liberty Bell cake ready to go and also the sheetcake then I could probably manage it. But I also have to do a Halloween cake for the same party and I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do for it.
The cakes are for a church Birthday party. There will be 12 tables and each table will be decorated and have a cake that corresponds to each month. Then everyone will sit at their birthmonth table for the party. I am making the cake for the October table and some other ladies volunteered for the July table. They are purchasing the cake from me. We have a lot of fun doing this each year.
I have a feeling the fondant will begin to set, even covered, and will crack when you try and drape it. The one I did was fondant, masked off the stripes with painters tape and airbrushed the red stripes. draped immediately after removing the tape. The blue was aribrushed and then arranged on the cake, the stars were added after draping.
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=coppermine&file=displayimage&meta=allby&uname=ShirleyW&cat=0&pos=105
The helicpoter and insignia are edible images on gumpaste, framed with gumpaste braid painted gold with dust and alcohol.
Oh my goodness Shirley that is an incredible cake!!!! I wish I had an airbrush 
. I wonder if there's another way to paint it with Wilton colors??? Anyone???
Well, this was the first flag I made and I had a wonderful sugar artist hold my hand and guide me through it, Janet Brown. Check out her website if you want to see some wonderful flag and military cakes.
http://www.janetscakes.com/CEREMONIALCAKE.html
I made my mistakes with this cake, if you look closely you will see red overspray, this happened because my masking tape wasn't sticky enough, i have since learned painters tape works better. The air from the airbrush caused the tape to lift a bit in places and that causes the overspray. I would have liked more of a Navy blue for the blue section but the sky blue was all I had in the way of airbrush color.
You might be able to tape and then mix airbrush liquid color with a bit of alcohol like Everclear or vodka to thin it a bit. Then carefully paint, let dry and remove the tape and quickly drape onto the cake. What Janet told me was absolutely true, people are so impressed with these flag cakes that they really don't notice any flaws. Just make sure you have the right numbers of stripes because people seem to want to count them, and make sure they are all the same width.
Shirley that is a MUST SAVE site ~ WOW! Now if only she had a Liberty Bell on one of those cakes 
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I don't know if anyone around here sells edible airbrush color. I have the Wilton can spray. I could play with it to test it.
Yes, I would test the Wilton spray. Tape some painters tape onto a piece of paper and then spray, see how it works. I have only tried it once and it kind of spit and sputtered, leaving spots of darker color here and there. I wasn't happy with it, same thing happened with the Preval sprayer Duff uses, but it may just be that I am not adept at handling air spray. The other thing I didn't like about the Wilton spray is that it is scented or flavored with peppermint, yucky smell and taste.
The flag is finished. I ended up doing it in fondant since don't have quick access to the airbrush colors. I'll have to get them for future use. The fondant ended up ripping as I was trying to put it on the cake so I hurried to not make matters worse. Here's a picture of the final cake. You can see where I cracked the "crack" in the bell from trying to put the fondant on. Oh well, lesson learned 
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http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=coppermine&file=displayimage&pos=-341163
Thanks for all your ideas and help on the flag
Thanks Shirley!! Yes it is suppose to have a crack in it. My problem was that when I quickly draped the fondant, it hit the crack I purposely put in it and now I have an accidental parallel crack over the horizontal crack 
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