Making a grassy iced cake- tips?

[LordFlasheart]

I am making a chocolate hill cake on Thursday for my mums birthday. It will be covered in green 'grass' and flowers, inspired by the cupcakes shown here: fab

I have my wilton nozzle, my green paste colourant, and disposable icing bags.

Just wondered if anyone has done this before, and has any tips? I think I'm supposed to use buttercream, but if you know different let me know!

TIA

I have seen 'grass' created using dessicated coconut and green food colouring. It looked amayyyzing but I have no idea how easy it was to do.

I've done a grassy field just using coloured buttercream and making it spiky / rough all over with the flat side of a palate knife

I did the coconut grass this weekend for a horse riding cake. It looked really good. I used shredded coconut and mixed it in a bowl with green food colouring. Then I spread it on a plate and left it for a while to dry out a bit. Done. It looked very grassy.

Sorry just re read and seen that you've all the gubbins ready for the other style.

I made a flower cake, using my garlic press to produce short lengths of regalice, which I think would work well for grass. I'll try to put a pic on my profile. Was very easy, looked impressive, was quite slow. I coloured it 2-3 shades and did clumps at a time.

Yes, I have the Wilton nozzle its www.wilton.com/technique/Grass

you can also do it with a garlic press if using a soft sugarpaste but it is hardwork.

Same answer as above - I had to do grass for one of DDs birthday cakes. I got a box of dessicated coconut, put it into a bowl, mixed it with a few drops of green food colouring then spread it onto a baking tray to dry out. It worked really well.

I used liquid food colouring rather than paste, made sure I was wearing gloves and mixed it all up with my hands. Didn't take too long, but was very messy!

I have the wilton nozzle so planning on using that- just wondered if it was buttercream that I use- will it be stiff enough to hold the shape?

Thanks for all the grassy stories :O)

Yes I used normal butter icing when I did this recently with the Wilton nozzle. The only thing I noticed was that as I was doing it my hands would start to melt the icing and it kept getting too soft so I did a combination of a) using only a little in the icing bag at a time and refilling it quite often and b) wrapping a towel around the icing bag in the hope it would keep my hot hands a bit further away from the icing. It looked fab when it was done! Good luck

i have hot hands! Thank you thats useful. Wi:-)do the same. Ill post a pic when its done, to add to my cake pic collection :-)

Hi Flasheart, if you make your buttercream quite stiff it will hold the shape better, also did mine with royal icing to make grass around cauliflower and carrots i made, pic on my profile.

Very nice pictures- just had a look. Really good decorating!

Loved the grassy one by the way - hope mine looks as professional!

Done. Picture on profile- not quite how I wanted it- but happy enough for a first go!

Flasheart, thats really good, you should be really proud of yourself!

Flasheart, thanks for your comments, i haven't made a cake for a month and i'm starting to have withdrawal effects, but i moved three weeks ago and i'm still trying to find things,arrrgh!!

Flick, that takes me back to my very first cake,i made a dinosaur cake for my son who if i remember that far back was 4, i felt so proud, i coloured the coconut like you and scattered it around the dinosaur, it was a terrible day weatherwise for his party, i got out of the car and the wind blew the coconut everywhere, i was not happy, the things you remember eh? it was 32 years ago though, tee hee.