I am working on a panda bear cake for my daughters birthday. Just in the design stages right now. I would like to put bamboo behind the panda topper, but am not exactly sure how I can go about making it. I thought about painting Spaghetti with food dye and sticking on some fondant leaves, but not sure if it would make the Spaghetti "limp" both from painting it and where it is stuck in the cake. What about dipping the Spaghetti in green candy melts, would that make it "limp". Anyone have any experience with this sort of thing. I have attached a drawing I have done to give you any idea of what I'm doing. Any info or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Well for some reason it won't let me attach the file, but the panda topper is about 3" high and I would like the bamboo to go about another 2" over the pandas head.

I would try wrapping lollipop sticks in gum paste. You can mold it to have all the details, it'll be easy to attach leaves, you can easily paint with food coloring and it will be sturdy.

Here is a youtube video that i found. I think it will help you tremendously.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49mv8IMOOg4&feature=related

That's pretty cool, but I don't want it for the sides of the cake. I need it, I guess you would say, for a back-drop behind my panda cake topper. Although, I guess I could do something similar on a sucker stick or on cake wire. Just have to use a cake spike if I use the wire, and I would have to do mine in green. That might work. Thanks.

Darn. I posted a reply here earlier, but it got lost in cyberspace! Let's try that again...

You can make bamboo out of gumpaste. Extrude it through a clay gun to make a fairly thick snake. Gently pinch it in one or two areas, then smooth the pinches out a little so the bamboo doesn't look like a bone.

Be sure to insert a toothpick or skewer in the bamboo before it sets up so you can insert it into the cake. Let it dry on a piece of foam sponge.

Mix green petal dust or powdered coloring with some confectioners glaze to make your bamboo shiny.

Glue on some fondant or wafer paper leaves.

Dont know if Im of any help I just rolled fondant out into a snake and formed it into bambo for a plaque on my monkey cake.

Im thinking could it be possible to use pretzel sticks or rods, dip in white choclate?

On my tiki cake I used a clay gun, with a large round circle and than I made little marks in it. I used fondant but you can use gumpaste if you want to make it stand up without a cake behind it.

Oh yeah... I forgot to mention that you should roll over the pinched joints with a pastry wheel or knife.

You can check out the Luau wedding cake in my pics. Honestly, the bamboo looked WAY cooler in person. I just couldn't capture it. It looks kind of dull in the pic, but in reality it was shiny with color variegations all up and down the stem. sigh...

i used a new silicone mold i found for modeling clay, they have it at micheals, its in a set of like nature things. one is leaves, one is bamboo, one stones and one rope. i love it, works great!

Steff~ Must be the same one I have...that is exactly how I do my bamboo. Love looking down the clay aisle for things for cakes.

Saved, thank you !!