Hi,
I am doing a Wedding this weekend, the bride wants an exact duplicate of a M.A. cake.
It is in Martha Stewart Weddings, cake, fruit flavor, arbor cake.
www.marthastewart.com
The question I have is: the royal icing facade fence is not very clear in the detail, how do you think I should go about this "fence"?

Thank you!

Well first - make sure she knows you are NOT Martha and the cake will be your interpretation of it, as close as you can make it. Unless of course you are positive you can make an exact replica of a Martha cake. You don't want a Bridezilla appearing if you have a strawberry out of place!

Second - I can't find a picture of the cake

I couldn't find the cake either.

I couldn't agree more with SweetResults; make it clear to the bride that you will make it as close to the MS cake as you can.

Hi
Thank you for your quick reply, sorry about the link.
The cake is called the grape arbor
http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&id=channel172135&catid=cat472&navLevel=3


The bride is well aware that not only am I not M.S., but that I am pretty much a novice, she has tasted my product and is thrilled, so she knows what to expect in both area's.

I found this site that has a close up pic of the cake but interestingly enough they don't say it's a Martha cake and with all the hoopla around here about using someone else's pics on your site I'm almost tempted to send them an email!

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.vineyardcaterers.com/vcwedcake.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.vineyardcaterers.com/vinrecpt.html&h=416&w=275&sz=41&hl=en&sig2=2cDjyN-fACrCRfs935ykGg&start=14&tbnid=7Vzr1UtjCTNH-M:&tbnh=125&tbnw=83&ei=mBprRa3VBdDG6gHA8qihAQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgrape%2Barbor%2Bcake%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG

The cake is at the bottom of the page

It looks to be straight lines across, with straight lines down. Gumpaste would work also.

It looks like it is created using royal icing. The design is not that clear though.

Kathy

THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!



Exactly what I was looking for!
I will make the beads green, rolled fondant grapes and I just need the arch and I'm set.
I am catering all the food too so I need to get the cake out of the way, now I can.
Thanks again.

1dessertdiva

Hi Dodibug,
I forgot to add your name to my last post,
So THANKS!!!!

I'm off to make my "fence"
1dessertdiva

You're welcome! Just remember to make extra trellis to accomodate for breakage since royal can be fragile! Best of luck on it!

Hi Dodibug,
You can count on me making extra, if it's one thing I have learned the hard way, you can never be too prepared or have too much product.

Seriously, Thanks again! you saved me a lot of difficulty.

1dessertdiva

I think that cake was actually slightly raised and the royal icing fence/arbour/gates were placed on afterwards, creating height to the cake.

You could do it more simple, just stack the cakes on top of one another and pipe the royal directly onto the cake OR have premade piped fences in sections and place on after stacking the cake if you know what I mean

you can make them with gumpaste or pastillage and a lattice cutter to make the fence.

you can use real grapes also if you sugared them to make your life simple, since you're doing all the desserts.

If you do the fences with gumpaste or pastillage you can take a small tube of Royal to fix any small breakage on site if you forget to make extra.

HTH

Hello again

I have made the fences out of royal, when they dry a bit I will put the "beads" in between the straight lines, the bride wants them the same color as on Martha's cake.
Also the bride wants fondant or gumpaste grapes, (not real)
After reading Martha's description I have chosen to affix the trellis fences to the cake board as I will have a 2" space in between the cakes.

Thanks again to everyone I truly appreciate the feedback

1dessertdiva

Had a look at the link dodibug posted, from what I see on their website, vineyard caterers is the actual designer of this cake. States this is their signature cake, Martha must have featured their cake in her magazine. This place is in Martha's neck of the woods, probably rubs elbows with each other, quite the upscale caterer.

That makes sense. I just always figured the cakes featured on Martha's site were theirs.

I didn't get to look around at that site but man...what must a reception there cost!! It's just beautiful!