"Hush Little Baby" Crib Cake

Materials:

Cookie sheets or cake cardboards
Tape
Waxed Paper
2 cups Royal Icing
Blue, Green, Red and Yellow coloring pastes/gels
Parchment or pastry bags
Piping Tips- #2,#3,#12,#86
Art Brush
10” Square Cake Layer
Quarter Sheet Cake Drum
Black Food-coloring Marker
Matching Ribbon
Glue Stick


Instructions:


1. Make several copies of each animal-shaped pattern and the letters from patterns below. Attach them to a firm, smooth surface that can be set aside. Cover the patterns with waxed paper and tape them into place. Remove 1/3 of prepared royal icing and set aside. Divide the remainder into 5 portions and tint with light blue, dark blue, green, red and yellow. Load a small handful of icing into a small piping bag fit with tip #3, then pipe the outline of each figure, being careful not to leave any gaps in the outline. Use a damp brush to help correct mistake and join line together.

2. Add drops of water, one at a time to the remaining colored icing until a ribbon of icing melts into the icing below it in 10 seconds. *Use tip #2 to flood each outline, building it up until the icing has a puffy, raised appearance. Allow the decorations to dry at least 24 hours. Repeat the process with the crib rail panels using the white icing.

3. Cut the cake in half, creating two rectangular 5 x 10” layers. Fill and stack on a cake drum, using a dab of buttercream icing to secure. Cover the cake with buttercream icing. Carefully remove the dried floodwork from the waxed paper with a thin, flexible spatula. ( Or you can pull the paper to the edge of a table or countertop; then pull the paper slowly over the edge, catching the piece as it comes from with your other hand.) Attach the bed rails to the cake, positioning them 1” above the surface cake drum.

4. Pipe green and red stripes across the front of the cake using tip #12, ending the bottom of stripe 1” above surface of cake drum. Alternate the colors randomly, piping 1-3 stripes of the same color before switching.


5. Pipe a red bead border around the base of the cake using tip #12.


6. Using tip #86, pipe a green ruffle around the entire cake just above the bead border, splitting the distance between the bead border and the bottom edge fo the rails/stripes. While piping, wiggle the tip in a very tight zigzag motion to achieve the ruffled appearance.

7. Pipe another green ruffle across the top of the stripes at the top edge of the bed’s front side.

8. With tip #86, pipe a second ruffle around the base of the cake in red. Expose just a little of the green ruffle below, keeping the top edge against the base of the bed rails and stripes. Add facial details to the animals using a black food-colouring marker. Arrange animals and letters on the bed and around the base, using buttercream to prop them up. Finish the cake drum by attaching pretty matching ribbon using a glue stick.

* Handy Tip from Mame... Begin piping the figure with two colors first. Pipe and flood the smaller portions, allowing the icing to crust. Then finish with the second color. I flooded the backside of the dry, completed figures to provide a more finished, 3-D appearance. You may choose to finish the pieces with only one layer.

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PATTERNS

Tutorial by Mame Recckio-Wolfe
2009. all rights reserved
Photography by Katie Hilbert
2009. all rights reserved
This material may not be republished or reproduced in any manner without the expressed permission of the author.
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You can find wonderful tutorials just like this one in every issue of American Cake Decorating Magazine. Order your subscription today!!

How to Make a Gumpaste High Heel Shoe

Supplies

Gumpaste colored to taste
2 toothpicks or thin bamboo skewers
Gum glue
PME cutter or pizza cutter
Roller & Gumpaste Board
Styrofoam Board
Cardboard center from paper towels (cut into a 3" triangle)
Clean plastic 2 litre bottle & tape
scissors

Wax paper for pattern

ball tool
Confectioner’s Glaze (opt)

Instructions:

Begin with a small 1"- 1-1/2" ball of firm gumpaste.



Start pulling a cord from one end of the ball until
you get the desired length of your heel.



Using the guide below,
find a design for the type of heel you want to make.
Using your hands, form heel to desired size and height.


I usually form a 2 – 2 ½ inch heel.


Then place the ball end of your heel on the board
and flatten.
Use your ball tool to smooth the curves on your heel.


Once it is formed, insert
a tootpick or thin skewer through the heel leaving
some of the skewer extending from both ends.



Pushing the skewer into your styrofoam,
Secure the heel in place upside down and allow to dry.








Once dry, you will cut and attach your sole to the shoe.
But before you do, you will need a form to secure the shoe
while the sole dries.


Kerry Vincent, in her book "Romantic Wedding Cakes", makes a
form for her beautiful gumpaste shoes using an aluminum soda can. But for me, I have found
using plastic is easier to handle and more forgiving
( as I am heavy handed and kept breaking the fragile aluminum form).





While your heel dries, create a form by cutting
a one inch wide strip from a plastic 2 litre bottle.


Measure in inner side of your heel and make the plastic
form the same height.

Once formed, secure with tape.

Now that your heel is dry, turn it right side up on your styrofoam and secure while you prepare your sole. Roll gumpaste out to about 1/8"-1/4" thickness. Place sole pattern over and cut around using a pizza or pme cutter.

If you are making a pair of shoes,

flip the pattern to cut the second shoe creating a left and right shoe.

Position form in front of heel.

Moisten top of heel with gum glue and attach sole to heel.

If you want to line your shoe, this is the time to cut a lining 1/4" inside the line of the original sole pattern. Brush with luster dust and place over sole of shoe.

Just as you cut the sole, roll gumpaste out and cut according to pattern, remembering to flip the pattern if you are making a pair of shoes.

Brush the edges of your sole with gum glue and place the top part of your shoe in place.

Take the cardboard triangle and place into the upper shoe

as a support while it dries.

Add additional trim to decorate the shoe, according

to the design you want to achieve. On this one,

I added white gumpaste strips brushed with copper luster dust.

Check heels and soles from every angle to be sure that they are straight
and allow to dry completely for 2 days.
(Resist the temptation to pick them up and check them---it is hard (I know!)---but the soles will crack if disturbed before they are completely dry.)

If you would like to achieve the look of patent leather,

brush with confectioner's glaze once shoe is completely dry.

And the last bit of advice is to have fun with it. Create, laugh and have loads of fun.
After all, it is only sugar!!

Shoe Patterns

Pictures, patterns and tutorial by Jacque Benson 2007 . all right reserved

This material may not be republished or reproduced in any manner without the expressed permission of the author.

How to Make a SugarPaste Princess Crown--- by Sharon Zambito

When I say Princess, you say Cakes.....

Me: Princess
You: Cakes!
Me: Princess
You: Cakes!

OK, so I get a little excited about cake.

And princess cakes have been a very popular design for a few years now. I have made more than I can count. I get asked quite often how I make the gumpaste crowns, so here are some step by step pictures I took many years ago. The pictures are rather craptastic, due to the fact that I had a craptastic camera at the time, and had no idea how to take a good picture back then. But I think you can get the idea of what I am doing in them. (PS. Craptastic = if crap was fantastic, this would be it)

MAKING A GUMPASTE CROWN:

Paper template:

Cut the metal rim off one end of your can (like a shortening can; I use the gumpaste mix can):

Wrap parchment paper (or wax paper) around your can and tape it in place. The end with the metal lid still on goes down on the counter:

Tape parchment or wax paper down well on counter (you do not need the blue mat under it) and grease it well with shortening:

Roll out gumpaste onto the wax paper and lay the paper template over it and trace over it to cut out the crown shape:

Apply shortening to the surface of the cut out crown with a brush:

Cut the wax paper with a knife along the bottom edge of the crown, and proceed to cut out the rest of a rectangle around the crown. Do not cut out the wax paper along the exact shape of the crown, except along the bottom edge:

Take the can and roll it onto the crown, lining up the base of can with the bottom edge of the crown. The greased side of the crown is sticking to the parchment paper wrapped around the can:

After crown is in place, wrapped all the way around the can, stand it up. Wax paper is still in place on top of the crown:

Gently peel off the wax paper from the top side of the crown. The side of the crown that was face down on the counter, touching the wax paper, is now the upside of the crown and exposed to the air:

Let that sit and dry for 1-2 days. Do not rush it or you will surely break it. (Ask me how I know):

When the crown is dry enough to hold its shape, grab the top of the parchment paper extending above the can and gently slide all of it together off the can:

Sit that on a board and then gently peel the parchment paper off of the inside of the crown:

Let that sit and dry for a few more days. When the crown is really firm you may need to wipe the excess shortening off the inside of the crown, and then dust it with a tad of cornstarch:

When fully dry, you can airbrush or paint it silver or gold. (This photo below is a lie. I was not actually airbrushing it at this time because I had to hold the airbrush with my left hand while my right hand took the picture. Impressive, eh?):

Then you can add plastic craft jewels, or even better, make edible ones!:

Pretty easy but you have to plan a few days ahead at least. Make 2, because if you make only one I guarantee you will break it. (Ask me how I know.) I like to use the Wilton gumpaste mix in the can for these because it not very elastic and rubbery, and that cuts easier than other types I have tried.
Here is a template for the crowns shown above. This is only one half of the crown. And you will have to enlarge this template to the right size for your cake:

Here is another template, the first one I ever made, an older design:

So there you have it! Now go get to making crowns!
Lots of crowns!

All kinds of crowns!
We love Princess cakes!!

________________________________________________

Want to see more of Sharon Zambito's work? Then visit

SugarEd Lagniappe

And to order Sharon's fantastic instructional DVDs and other great decorating supplies, visit

SugarEd Productions

Tutorial and Photos by Sharon Zambito-SugarEd Productions- copyright 2008

This material may not be republished or reproduced in any manner without the expressed permission of the author.

This material was used with the permission of Sharon Zambito, SugarEd Productions.

THANK YOU SHARON!!