I have a friend that has asked me to do a cake for her son's birthday on Sunday. He will be 2 and it is going to be rainforest themed party. Ok, so here's the thing, I am going out of town on Saturday early am so I would need to give her the cake on Friday night.

I am stuck on what I should do for the cake. It needs to be for 40 people. I've searched this site and found some cute jungle cakes but nothing rainforest. I really don't know much about it but would guess it would be close to a jungle cake. right? I had thought about doing a 2 tiered cake with trees going up the side and little animal heads popping out thru the trees. What do you think about that? It will be buttercream with fondant accents. Will the fondant accents stay on that long? Will the cake still be fresh tasting? I've done a fondant cake that far in advance and it was still moist but that keeps in the freshness better I think.

Any other suggestions on how to do the cake would be greatly appreciated. It has to be constructed and transported to the moms house and to the science museum, so I need something travel friendly and sturdy.

I am really considering telling her I can't do it because I want it to look really nice and taste great too. She is going to have about 18 different families there who I consider potential clients. I really want my business to take off and the type of people that will go to this party are more likely to spend more on a cake for what it looks like than go to a grocery store. I'm thinking no cake is better than advertising a bad/sad looking cake.

Thanks,
Michelle

Michelle,
Maybe you could pick ONE item found in the rainforest, and do a FBCT of that, perhaps a Macaw bird.....very colorful, would look beautiful. Then it could be done on a flat surface, which is much more sturdy to transport. And, that shouldn't take quite as long to make than all the little fondant creatures (at least for me it would be quicker). Just a thought.

This isn't exactly rainforest, but there are monkeys in the rain forest, right? LOL, lot I know about things... The trees are buttercream and the monkeys are chocolate transfers, so the monkeys are light weight and would stay on the cake without falling off over the amount of time you're talking about. I think the fondant accents you're talking about would be fine to stay on the cake, and if they're thick, you could put a toothpick in their backs to help stick them to the cake.

Deanna

Well, the 2007 Wilton book has a monkey cake using the Lion pan, you can do that and put it on top of a sheet cake. That way it would be all buttercream you can keep in the fridge just fine for a couple of days, and fondant to wait to dry.

Any fondant figures done this late with just melt (droop)if they don't dry--I learned the hard way. I would do a something simple since it is a young child--they don't care anyway at that age. The cake with the trees and monkeys is cute. a transfer of an animal would be easy.

Aaahh, a rainforest, I like that theme!

I did a cake for my little one and it the theme as Miss Spider. I did a big tree in the middle and a little bit of a meadow. You can add more branches and leaves to make the tree fuller.

You can use the idea of the big tree in the middle, little birds on the branches, then do stuff underneath the tree, like a little stream of water, rocks, butterflies, etc..