I told my sister I would make her wedding cake, and this is what she wants:

http://www.somethingsweetbymichelle.com/gallery.html#25

She really wants the background and brush embroidery to match as closely as I can.

I cannot figure out the coloring of the fondant. I just made a small fondant plaque (champagne color) and piped some embroidery on it. It's not the same. I'm seeing some pink hues in the original cake somewhere, but I'm not sure how it's achieved. Do you see multiple colors in the fondant? Or, is it just the brush embroidery that adds color?

I was thinking of brushing pink and gold luster dusts over the fondant before piping with pink and white royal icing.

Any ideas you have to help me get the look of this cake would be much appreciated.

this one, right?



not sure, but here's another picture I found of it that's a little closer up that might help us assess it:

another picture:

I think you're right ... there's more than one color of the base fondant. Perhaps they lightly airbrushed that darker hue unevenly? Then all over with a shimmer?

Wow...you've got your work cut out for you! It looks to me like most of the shading is coming from the raised piping itself...but there also looks to be some light brown petal dusting here and there around parts of the 'embroidery' to highlight it a bit.

Thank you, Metria. Those pictures help a TON! I was having a really hard time understanding what was going on with those flowers. Now, it looks like it may be light brush embroidery in white, then outlined in very light pink.

Carmijok, thank you for the idea of the brown petal dust. I was seeing the brown, too, and had tried highlighting bits of the embroidery with a thin line of brown royal icing when I was practicing earlier today. It didn't look right at all. I'll try the dust.

I think this is going to involve a lot of trial and error. It didn't look too complicated when I first saw the picture. Champagne colored fondant with a little brush embroidery, right?

I didn't notice this before, but underneath the picture, there is a description of the award this cake won:

Maybe I bit off more than I can chew, but I'll give it my best shot.

Thank you both so much for your help!

My vote is that the fondant is all one color.

I think it's one color too and that the lighting makes it look peachy/pink

It does look like one color, airbrushed with pearl sheen and then the piping has a little bit of luster dust here and there. I'd try a deeper color than gold for the luster dust, maybe copper mixed with cantaloupe. That piping is going to be hard on your hands, by the time you're done with the whole cake. I've found that a fabric piping bag is more comfortable for big projects like that.

I'm going to stick with the solid champagne color brushed all over with luster dust. Thanks, everyone.

Would you mind looking at my attempt at the flowers? Here's a link:

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/2219502

I tried shading them a little with luster dust. (I didn't have copper, so I used gold luster dust mixed with cocoa powder).

Something is not quite right with this. Do you think the original cake is brush embroidered or not? What would you change to make it look closer to the original?

Thanks for any advice you can share.

They used an ultra small tip - probably a "OO" from England. And I don't see any brushed embroidery but tiny piping. Get an OO and some Advil.

Well, the cake is finished. I decided to go with the brush embroidery and I attached the flowers directly to the cake and eliminated the branches. Here's a link if you want to see it. Thank you so much, everyone, for your help with this. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and my sister loved it!

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/2236139/champagne-brush-embroidery-wedding

Very nice job!!

Well done!
I'm sure the bride was pleased. She has an amazingly talented sister.

mommachris

Great job! That's one beautiful cake.

Super job! Looks fabulous!

Thanks, guys!

That is a gorgeous cake! I need to find out how to do the brush embroidery.

Wow you did an amazing job! It's stunning. I want to try brush embroidery one day.

Here's a link to a video that helped me a lot when I was experimenting with the brush embroidery.