any cake decorators? royal icing ? for you

[alicia622]

I am planning DS's birthday cake- It is going to be an ocean or fish tank scene and I am trying to figure out how to make little fish/sea creature decorations. My thought is to use royal icing to make the shapes and then I wanted to paint them but I don't know if this will really work.

It's very hot and humid- will the icing dry? How thin should I make the icing so I can pipe the shapes and have them smooth over? Can I use a touch of water to smooth the shapes? What type of coloring should I use to paint the icing- there is a local cake shop with powder, gel and oil based colors or will regular liquid colors work?

Most of the cake ideas I've found online use gummy fish for the fish, but I'd like to make it all myself. (That will be my back up plan if this doesn't work!)

THANKYOU!!!

[serenbat]

It's very hot and humid- will the icing dry?

really, NO, it will take longer than normal and you may not get the HARD result that royal should give - HUMIDY is a killer to royal!! you could try a fan on low but really humid conditions are awful for egg white base items

How thin should I make the icing so I can pipe the shapes and have them smooth over?

You can make it quite thin, pipe the shape just using a bag and the end cut off very tiny and not even mess with tips.
You can smooth it over (if you end up with a tip, let's say) by using your finger dipped in some water.
How do you plan to make the royal? I personally use Wilton, Meringue Powder, I think it is much safer and I like the results, the can comes with directions. I buy the small cans, if you are not using a lot of it fast, it can get hard in the can. I keep it in the can and also put the can in a zip lock too.

What type of coloring should I use to paint the icing- there is a local cake shop with powder, gel and oil based colors or will regular liquid colors work?

You can use liquid to tint the BASE and later apply (with brush or toothpick) using an oil base or powder (I would do this PRIOR to drying and VERY VERY lightly!!)

If you have a local store they should be able to help you some more. (most AC Moore stores do have someone that can help you) - Wilton has an 800 number too.

GOLD miner's gum (in little red bags) is nice to use as gravel - don't know if you need that or not, also there are ROCK and SHELL candies that are nice too, root~beer barrels are neat too, depending on if you need things at the bottom of the sea, I buy when I see them, skeleton candies (may be too young to use those) and use them a lot. I make a lot of sea related cakes (ships, sand castles, etc). I have never made fish, I use gummy, you can get lobsters and octopus, I use royal to make ships wheels and figure heads for the boats.


http://www.escapeconcepts.com/Store/...htm?8442.htm&1

[alicia622]

thank you for the help!!! I think I'll go check out the candy shop for gummies- I don't want to go through all the work to have gooey icing fish. I was planning to use the merangue powder rather than fresh eggs.

[ChocolateNummies]

If you can do nuts, what about marzipan? I just shaped some dinosaurs for my son's b-day cake out of marzipan. I'm no sculptor, so they weren't the best but ds thought they were fab. You can add food coloring to it before shaping or just water some down a little and paint the outside like I did with a little paintbrush.

[alicia622]

Originally Posted by ChocolateNummies

If you can do nuts, what about marzipan? I just shaped some dinosaurs for my son's b-day cake out of marzipan. I'm no sculptor, so they weren't the best but ds thought they were fab. You can add food coloring to it before shaping or just water some down a little and paint the outside like I did with a little paintbrush.

that's a great idea!!! I might be able to pull that off

[alicia622]

I bought fondant- already colored and will try to make fish with this. All I can find for fish candy were swedish fish

[ErinBird]

What about doing a frozen buttercream transfer for your fish and other detailed decorations?

[LaughingHyena]

I would do them like this
http://bakingproject.com/index.php/tag/run-out