Sugarcraft chat

[wem]

I started a thread for cake people a while back but it got a bit lost in Chat so thought I'd try to tempt people into our lovely new baking topic.

Hopefully I'll see some of the posters from the chat thread, but for any new people popping in, introductions: I'm wem, I'm a recent cake obsessive and have been bothering mumsnetters about it a fair bit as I'm starting up cake decorating business. I don't have anywhere near the experience or knowledge of some of the posters in here, but I do have an excessive willingness to chat about cake :)

Let's try this again, eh?

Nanny, I would use pastillage for a box, much less fragile. it is basically royal icing with added gum tragacanth. it dries very hard and very quickly but once you have the shape and it is dry you can sand any rough edges and then decorate.

Hi blueberry, can i use the Squires flower paste? or wouldnt that be suitable?

You can it will need quite a bit of drying time if you are making it thick enough not to be fragile. Flower paste is by nature quite fragile once dry.

is two weeks today long enough?

Yup should be fine. What are you sticking the box sides together with?

Would edible glue do it? or thin scraping of royal icing? what would you use?

Nanny - you need pastillage to make your box. It sets rockhard - a word of warning, because of the high ratio of gum tragacanth it is quite dry so you have to work quickly, it's not as forgiving as normal sugarpaste. I buy the powdered version and make it up in small quantities.

You can either "stick" it together with royal icing or (what I prefer) by dipping the dried ends in sugar syrup taken to hard crack stage - once this has set it is rock solid and your box won't run the risk of coming apart.

Flowerpaste won't work - it's too delicate. And pastillage is cheaper.

Pastillage definitely seems to be everyones choice so i'll give that a go, however i,ve never used it before, so you add water to it and knead it like you would normal sugarpaste? sorry abit of a novice with this, i obviously need everyones help dont i? ha ha.

don't overknead it - just enough to make it come together. You could also add some trex for elasticity

Ok i.'ll go after work tomorrow, where i live theres a fab cake decorating shop with an oldish guy in there who knows everything, abit like Ronnie Baker from "Open all Hours" and he has a till to match!!

stealth, I am eagerly awaiting pictures of the Asparagus cake!

I have put some more cake photos on my profile, including DD's Noahs Ark birthday cake (which is cheating really as it's based on a Debbie Brown design... )

Great cakes midori :) As promised, I've put up a picture of my photography studio :), and also the picture I was taking.

The drum came out really well, wem and I love the whisky one, midori.

Have come to a bit of a complete halt on asparagus - will restart later as it is for Tuesday, so I need all the asparagus done before tomorrow night in order to assemble cake on Monday night.

unpainted asparagus and painted

Midori, your cakes are beautiful, I especially like the zebra pattern one and the teddy bear. How did you get the fluff effect on the bear?

Buttercream piped with a star nozzle by the looks of it

Ok thanks. I have a packet of ready made icing and have no idea what to do with it. There are three upcoming birthdays, one of which is DS's tenth, so am thinking I'll make something special for him. I've never tried making a properly decorated cake before (some malteasers plonked on buttercream is about as creative as I've got). I have no idea where to start!

Just finished the second of two cake orders today and am really looking forward to a cuppa and a sit down because I have had to cake while having DD which is always fucking awful a challenge. Pics on profile page - the cake for twins having a party and the thames cable car. It's a friend of ours, he is basically the man in charge of it (compliance officer) and it's his birthday tomorrow. To give you an idea of whether I've done a good job recreating it, here is an article with the real thing in. Ran out of inclination time to draw the ladies on the pod...

That's brilliant Nigel, I love the cable come out of the top! I don't know how you managed to do anything with your dd around - your profile says she's 2, my dd1 is 3 and I freeze the moment she comes anywhere near me when I'm doing cake stuff and shout to DH to come get her! She's very interested in all my cake goings on though. She designed her 4th birthday cake today, pink and yellow stripes on top, blue spots on the bottom and green on the sides . She drew me a picture

Viking, would your DS have any ideas for his cake? Or might they be a little too, um, imaginative?

He'll say something like beyblades, so no! He likes cats, minerals and insects, especially scorpions.

I have no idea what beyblades are, but google images tell me they are fairly circular - could be pretty cake compatible?

Minerals? Like quartz and stuff? Hmmm...

Scorpions - ace, I'd love to make a sugar scorpion! There are a lot of cat cakes out there, I like this one. The model could be simplified quite a bit.

Ok, so I have a few ideas now having googled "scorpion cake". I'm thinking a plain white icing with a black scorpion in sugarpaste. Oh and I'll make the sponge a rainbow cake!

I love it - sharp black and white, then huge rainbow colours inside :)

Ok, so I'm going to have to order some colour gels, I've already got the icing, what else will I need? Is a smoother a good idea or will me hands do?