I have a request for a small birthday cake for a man who is receiving a Magnolia tree as his gift. We have decided on a 2-layer 6" cake. The only idea I could come up with is to ice the cake in blue, pipe a tree trunk on the side coming up to the top, and have magnolia flowers on the top of the cake. However, I'm afraid of 2 things:

1) It will look too cartoonish
2) It will look too girly.

I have some scrapbook paper to cover the board that looks like grass, so I would like to use that. Any ideas? This one is stumping me, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Marilyn

This might be dumb, but, since he is getting the tree to plant, what if you did a big hole with a fondant/gumpast tree looking like it's about to be planted. You could have a shovel, watering can, gardening gloves, etc.

That's a good idea SLK.

what about making a tree out of fondant and growing on the outside of the cake? I just did a baby shower cake and made trees on all 4 sides of the cake. Maybe you could make the trees look like a magnolia or pipe flowers on it?

I used a dowel and covered it in my homemade chocolate fondant. let that dry then made the top of the tree out of foil covered that in mmf then painted it green

kjb - i noticed you said homemade chocolate fondant - is that choc mmf? I'm looking for a chocolate mmf recipe.

uhhh..no marshmellows in this one... I stumbled on this cheater recipe one day: mix 1 jar chocolate frosting ( walmart brand works great!) and 1 lb of confectioners sugar...I mix mine in the kitchen aid with the dough hook attachment. mix until it is dough ...when rolling it out I use corn starch. Vanilla frosting works great too! Its ready to use as soon as you mix it...no cooling required. tastes good too! it hardens up nice and the vanilla can be painted with food coloring or food coloring can be added while you mix it.

the cake with the tree on it is in my photos if you wanted to see what I was talking about?

good luck!
Kim

that's cool. I've never heard of such a thing. I am going to try this one. Thanks kjb.

mommymarilyn - have you decided what you are going to try?

Wow kjb, that's sounds like a great alternative recipe to regular and mm fondants. I will have to try. Thanks for sharing!

Here is a pic of the cake. He wanted something simple, so I didn't get to do some of the wonderful ideas you guys gave me, maybe next time.

I loved SLK's idea for the gloves and shovel, with a hole and dirt for planting the tree!

KJB - I loved the trees on your cake - they are so cute!

It's a 6-inch, 2-layer milk chocolate cake with cookies-n-cream filling. I used the dream whip buttercream, (dragon warlord's recipe) and chcolate fondant for the tree trunk, MMF for the flowers and leaves.

nice job - it looks great. The flowers are really nice.

Good job! The flowers are great.

love it! You did a GREAT job! I love the magnolias being different sizes!

so I have to ask did you end up using my recipe for homemade chocolate fondant...and if so what did you think?

Kim