Hello, I need some help & suggestions. My daughters birthday is in September 2011 and wants me to make a peacock cake. I've never done one before but am planning on giving it a try this weekend.

I understand from reading posts on here that I can make the peacock from RKT (is it best with or without butter) then cover in molding chocolate and then covered in fondant. Do you use wires to shape the body of the peacock? I also understand that I should make all my feathers for the peacock way, way ahead of time. So since it's 2 months away, I think I got that part covered. Has anyone made the RKT using peanut butter? My daughter does not like the regular RKT and wants me to make it with peanut butter but don't know how this will hold?

My problem is, how do you make the eyes for the peacock? Do you use fondant? If so, what tools do you use? Or would you paint them on with edible markers? If so, how to make them?

I've done a search for "peacock eyes" and all I find are human eyes with different eyes shodows to look like peacocks.

Just want to have all my tools before I start on this project. Any help on this is greatly appreciated. Thanks

depends on how big it is, but i would use brown m&ms and turn them over and put a little bit of butter cream on them to make the light spot in the eyes........or if you need something bigger you could use compound chocolate disks, jr. mints etc.....thats just what i would do but that is just my opinion as i have never made a peacock cake before....hope it helps

Well, i don't have an answer, but I have a question - peanut butter in the rice cereal treats? Is this instead of marshmallow? Will this hold together? I don't see how it will, but I love to know if someone has had experience with it.
Good luck on the eyes!

If you are just replacing the butter in the RKT with peanut butter, and use the same amount of marshmallows as the original recipe calls for you should be OK with the peanut butter RKT. You might need to compress them more when you mold the peacock, but you need to compress them fairly tightly to get a smooth surface anyway so it shouldn't be a problem.

As to the eyes, the question is how big are you making the body of the bird. This will affect how big you make the head and hence how big you make the eyes. Both the ducks and the red bird in this cakorama (cake diorama) have black sugar bead eyes. The red bird is actually quite small, but as it is made of candy clay I just pushed the bead further in and sealed the candy clay around it with a dresden tool and my fingers. For the duck's eyes I didn't push them in as far so they look bigger. The ducks are made of RKT and are at least 5 times the size of the red bird.

http://lamaisondesgateaux.blogspot.com/2011/05/bonne-fete-dan.html

Hi deborahanne, fantastic birds! My intention was to make the peacock on top of either a 6" cake ball or a 6" pillow cake. Haven't decided which will look best. I think the peacock will not be more than maybe 6 to 8 inches big, I'm guessing.

@ soapy hopie- the M&M ideas sounds great. Never thought of that, guess I should look for chocolate circle types of candy to help with the eyes.

@idgalpal, as for the peanut butter RKT, I was still going to use the marshmallow because that's what holds it together.

I really didn't want to throw the peacock away once its placed on the cake so by using peanut butter....my daughter will eat it.

Would it be better to use molding chocolate or ganashe over the RKT

I just foung a tutorial today, but the peacock is made from gumpaste. If you're interested pm me your email address and I'll forward it to you

Because the peacock has a rather smallish head in relation to its body/tail, you'll probably wind up using sugar beads for the eyes. If you don't want to buy a whole bottle of black sugar beads for 2 eyes, you could make up a bit of black gum paste and roll two beads in the size you think you'll need for the eyes and let them dry. If you make them a bit big, you can just set them deeper into the head and shape your fondant around them. Alternatively, you could make 2 or 3 sizes of beads just in case.

Whatever you use to cover your RKT its best to have your surface as smooth as possible before covering. I always use the back of a spoon to compact the RKT and smooth the surface. Then I use melted chocolate or candy melts which I apply with a brush to fill any cracks and hollows. After that dries I smooth it with my hands. The heat from my hands smooths out any bumps. The more smooth your RKT the more flawless the finished product. The teddy bear and the cat for these cakes were done by this method.

http://lamaisondesgateaux.blogspot.com/2010/12/un-gateau-de-chocolat-couvert-en.html

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1943672

I should also add that I put a thin coating of buttercream on my RKT figure before I cover it with fondant, gumpaste or modeling chocolate.

Yes. It only takes a very thin layer to act as a glue to hold your fondant in place.

oh, thats really good to know. Thank you for the information.

may be this link will help you
http://www.lovelytutorials.com/forum/showthread.php?t=403

thank you so much for this link. Great help.