I want a cake that looks like it's exploding into flame, and I have some ideas that involve using the "burst" technique (where there are sort of triangles of fondant folded back from an opening in the middle of the cake) with melted-hard-candy "fire" instead of or in addition to stars on wires sticking out of the middle.

But my son (whose birthday cake this will be) is not a fan of fondant. Anyone ever made a "burst" effect with buttercream? Maybe the folded-back triangles could be piped with a leaf tip or something like that? Is it time to learn to use modeling chocolate? Other ideas?

TIA
Holly

ive never worked with buttercream so i cant answer, but my best guess would be for you to just have a small practise sometime before you do the cake to see if it works in buttercream first , if all else fails, Try modelling chocolate lol X

I used dried fondant triangles for my Elmo surprise cake and they stayed. The Elmo was color flow with lollipop supports. It stayed fine in the BC iced cake.
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1908327.html

You could use melted candy melts to make flames and fire bursts and support them with lollipop sticks. For the star wire effect you could get a flower pick and hot glue all of your wires into that and that should probably work too.

Good luck.

you could try color flow. make your flames ahead of time and let them dry then you could place them upright where you need them and color flow is yummy. I add vanilla to mine.

I made my son's cake with buttercream and the "burst" was fondant triangles. It worked great! I placed them on the cake and used papertowel to keep the shape until they dried (Buttercream was crusted).
Hope that helps!
http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1699006

I'm pleasantly surprised by how good the transition from the BC icing to the fondant triangles looks! Maybe that will work.

Color flow isn't something I've done before...that's basically thinned royal icing, yes? You pipe it into the outline and then let it harden...on wax paper?

Candy melt chocolate clay will work like fondant, and will be a whole lot tastier.

Theresa

I just realized it's been way too long since I checked in here at CC, and I never uploaded a photo of the explosion cake! Rectified now, in case anyone is interested.

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/2026605