Any cake decorators about?

[huggelove]

Any expert cake decorators out there?

I am thinking of a tree stump cake for DD's birthday .

My plan so far is brown edible dust on the top of the stump and then use a bark impression mat for the outside. If I paint the outside bark brown, do I just use the same powder and add alcohol?

Or do I need to buy specialist brown paint? I've never painted before.

TIA

Bump

Hello!

I am not sure what you mean. It sounds like you'll be icing it with fondant/sugarpaste/ready-roll icing (one and the same)? In that case I would start off with the icing in a solid brown colour, all one shade, and then yes you can paint on top with gel colouring mixed with clear alcohol (e.g. vodka).

What would you use the dust for?

It's probably cheapest and easiest to start with white icing and colour it brown, but you might be able to find pre-coloured brown icing somewhere. Once you have it one shade of brown for the base colour, you could mix in more brown until swirly and not mixed in entirely, that might give a woody effect.

Personally I would just decorate using buttercream as it's more delicious and you can get a better texture with it :)