Let's talk about Color!

This is just a simple post-- but with so many food colors on the market,

a lot of people never know for sure how to obtain certain hues.

For instance, the other day, a student of mine asked me how to achieve

the blue of the Tiffany boxes.

I just use teal and works great for me.

Here is a color chart to help with some colors.

Color Chart

ANTIQUE GOLD: Add just an extremely small touch of Leaf Green to golden yellow

APRICOT: 2 parts Orange, 1 part Golden Yellow

AQUA: Sky Blue and Leaf Green

AVOCADO: Use Moss Green color or 4 parts Lemon Yellow, 1 part Leaf Green, Touch of Black

BLACK: Our paste color or Royal Blue, Christmas Red, Orange and Lemon Or
                mix left over color icing together, then add Black

BRICK RED: Red and Brown

BURGUNDY: 5 parts Rose Pink, 1 part Violet

CHARTREUSE: 9 parts Lemon Yellow, 1 part Leaf Green

COPPER: 1 part Golden Yellow, 1 part Brown, 1 part Christmas Red

CORAL: Watermelon makes a very attractive coral color. Or bright Creamy Peach
              Or 3 parts Rose Pink, 2 parts Lemon Yellow

DUSTY ROSE: 5 parts Rose Pink, 1 part Violet

EGGPLANT: Mix Navy Blue into the amount of icing you are going to use for your project.
                      Then mix Super Red into a smaller amount of icing. Add the Super Red icing
                       to the Navy Blue icing until you get the eggplant color you want.
                      You can also try it with Royal Blue instead of Navy Blue, depending on the
                      shade of eggplant that you want.

FLESH: Add just an extremely small touch of Copper to white icing.
             Ivory can also be used. Light pink with a small amount of brown

GOLD: 10 parts Lemon Yellow, 3 parts Orange, 1 part Red

GRAPE: 1 part Sky Blue, 6 parts Rose Pink

GRAY: Add just a touch of Black to white icing

HUNTER GREEN: Kelly Green and a touch of black

IVORY: Use Ivory paste

JADE: Leaf green, royal blue and a touch of black

LAVENDER: Pink and violet Or 5 parts Pink, 1 part Violet

MARIGOLD: Lemon Yellow and orange

MAROON: Burgundy and Red Red Or 4 parts Red Red, 2 parts Burgundy

MAUVE: Touch of Burgundy with very little black Or 5 parts Rose Pink, 2 parts Orange, 2 parts Red, 2 Parts Black

MELON: 1 part orange and 3 parts bakers rose

MISTY GREEN: Leaf Green, Royal Blue and a touch of black

MOSS GREEN: violet and lemon yellow Or 2 parts Violet, 3 parts Lemon Yellow

MULBERRY: Rose with a touch of Royal Blue

NAVY BLUE: Royal blue and black Or 1 Part Sky Blue, 1 part Violet

PERIWINKLE: Blue and purple

PERSIMMON: 1 part orange and 1Part bakers rose

PLUM: 1 part Violet, a touch of Christmas Red

RASPBERRY: Pink and Red Red Or 3 parts Rose Pink, 1 part Christmas Red

RUBY RED: 1 part Red Red, a touch of Black

RUST: Orange, Red Red and Brown Or 8 parts Orange, 2 parts Red Red, 1 part Brown

SEA GOLD ( SEA GREEN): 2 parts Sky Blue and 1 part Leaf Green

SILVER: We do not advise attempting to simulate silver color in icing. Instead,
               add silver leaves or other silver accessories to the cake.
               Or 1 part Black, 1 part Blue

SKIN TONE: 12 part Orange and 4 part Bakers Rose and 1 part Royal Blue

TEAL: Use teal paste color or lemon yellow and sky blue Or 9 parts Sky Blue, small amount of Lemon Yellow

TURQUOISE: Sky Blue and Lemon Yellow Or 6 parts Sky Blue, 1 part Lemon Yellow

WARM GOLD: Use Golden Yellow with just a touch of brown

WINE: 3 parts Christmas Red and 2 parts Rose Pink


Keep in mind that some colors are already available in the market. For example, Wilton  has
a beautiful Moss green.  Sometimes the base on some colors is different. Once I bought  a black
from Wilton that gave me a base of green instead of grey.

Just play with your colors and have fun with them.  Sometimes there is more than one way to
achieve the same color. You can try it on a small batch of buttercream to make sure
is the right shade you are looking for.

And never forget...Buttercream turns darker as it dries. A perfect shade of  deep red
on a non-crusted buttercream, can turn almost a burgundy once it's dry. If you are not
sure, spread some on a plate and let it dry before you put it on the cake.

As for fondant, the tendency is to dry in a lighter color.

Hope this helps!


Edna De La Cruz- 2010- All rights reserved.
Edna's Website- Design Me A Cake

Photography and Material in this post by Edna De La Cruz.
This may not be reproduced without permission from the author/photographer.

How Mara Tirado Makes a Purse!!

To make it easier, start with a book pan. I got my smallest one from Fiesta Cakes. Using a book pan keeps you from haing to trim cake. I hate doing that, too much waste. If you don't have a book pan you can use a round, square, anything you have to make your purse cakes.

As you can see they have a "natural" purse-y shape...just close your eyes and add the handle or strap...lol

Here is my baked cake. turned out from the pan. Frozen for about an hour to make any cutting and or trimming easier.

I cut my cake in 1/2

Here is the cut, straight down the middle.

Stand one 1/2 on your board.

Put your buttercream filling on the other 1/2 and sandwich them together tightly, I use a round tip to go around the join to make sure my buttercream is filling all the nooks and crannies. Then ice the cake with your favorite buttercream.

Sugar Craft Gun...A Cake Decorators BBF! I used the the disc shown to make my "cord". You extrude it and hold one end while you roll the other end up or down...pick a direction and stick to it. It will look like a braided cord.

Cord, Flap and zipper attached. I'm sure that you guys know how to ice and cover a cake with fondant? or you can just do a butter cream cake and pipe on the details.

Here is what the cake looks like. Nothing fancy, but feel free to let loose when you do yours. You can quilt it, paint it, add fondant circles, stripes or shapes, whatever your little heart desires. Or your customers desire. lol

Use 18g wire. and 2 coffee straws that you will cut in 1/2 to get 4 pieces. ( my wire here is bent. Use new wire that's not bent.

make 4 small balls of fondant.

place the 4 small balls of fondant where you think you would like the handle of your purse to be.

Push the cut coffee straws into the balls and into the cake, leaving a little bit of the coffee straw exposed.

Make a fondant sausage. Not to much or you will have a great big chunky handle.

Thread the wire into the sausage that you made. Slip the fondant sausage toward the middle of the wire.

Roll the threaded fondant sausage out to make the handle the lenght you like. Keeping your sausage as even as possible.

Ok, this was supposed to be a video. While holding both ends in your hands, you first bend one side gently, then the other...making a sort of rocking motion...down and up. You keep doing this until you have the "U" shape of a handle. You leave some of the 18g wire exposed on eighter end so you can place it into the coffee straws that are embeded in the fondant balls on the purse. As you can see the ends of my sausage come to a bit of a point.

Push the handle into the coffee straws, pushing the exposed coffee straws into the cake, through the balls that you have placed on the cake. I like to taper the ends of my sausage a bit to make a more "refined" handle. Make the second handle if you like, or you can just use one. This is the way you can make a purse cake, quickly and not have to worry about letting the handles dry for 3 days or more!

Photos, patterns and tutorial by Mara Tirado, 2009 all rights reserved.

This tutorial was used with the expressed permission of Mara Tirado of Heaven Lee Cakes and may not be reproduced without written permission from the author.

Holiday Roast Turkey....Cake that is!!!!

How to make a Roast Turkey Cake

I was really intimidated to even do one of these!! But I finally got my nerve up to try it. I've seen so many awesome roast turkey cakes in the last few years and everyone said that they were easy to do...?!!! Really?!!! Um...well, you be the judge!! I took this cake to our Thanksgiving dinner and everyone was wondering why the turkey was on the dessert table!!! That was a great compliment!!!

So to get on with how I did mine:

I first made the wings and leg bones so that they had a little time to set up. I shaped some gumpaste into a basic wing shape.

Then I used a ball tool to give the wing some bone definition.

Then flattening out the edge to make it look more bony

.

For the leg bones, I put some gumpaste on a skewer, rolling to the length I wanted. I used a melon baller to round out the end of the bone. Cut the skewer to desired length also.

For the cake, I used two 12 inch round pans.

The first cut is the hardest!!! I traced a shape out with a knife before cutting. Set the two cut ends to the side and save for the legs.

Then round out the top corners and underside, until you get the shape desired.

Cut a half circle out of the pieces left of the cake to make the legs and put them on either side.

Pipe on the icing using a bag without a tip. Smooth with a spatula. Add the bones into the end of the legs. Let crust over and then smooth with a Viva paper towel, remembering to press in the underside of the turkey to give it a 3-D dimension. If you can find a paper towel with a dot pattern, use it now to give the turkey a skin-like appearance. I couldn't find a dot pattern paper towel so I used one of my plastic texture sheets that had a somewhat dot pattern. You can also use the plastic weaved bag from onions. I didn't have one so .....

At this stage of the of the cake, you can add shadow anywhere that's needed. It's probably easier if you have an air brush, but I don't have one!! I did take some black dust and put on the edges that would darken in the oven as if it here a real turkey. I used a fine mist spray bottle filled with warm water, corn syrup and brown food coloring. As you can see from the pictures, the spray would run down the side of the turkey. I guess it has that "basted" look!!

To finish, I put my turkey on a platter that was purchased at the Dollar Store! I know, I'm cheap!! I made lettuce out of fondant and veggies that where a fondant/gumpaste mix. I also put some coarse sugar sprinkles on to make it look like seasoning.

Here is a close up of the carrots, peas, sugared cranberries and yes those are supposed to be potatoes!! Some people thought they were eggs!!

Take any remaining cake scraps and cube them for the stuffing, filling the "cavity".

Below are some pictures of Jacque's turkey!!! She did such an awesome job that I have to show it off!!! i love hers!!! I will let her tell you how she did hers!!

******************************

Rhonda, That was a fabulous step by step!! Thank you!

I am not sure I can add much to that, but I did a couple of things differently and give credit for some of the techniques to the very talented Cece Gardon, who demonstrated her roast turkey cake for the SouthEast Texas Cake Club last November.

I wish I been given the luxury of time to take "in process" pics, but it was a crazy busy week.

First, I baked mine in 3 oval pans along with two cupcakes. I stacked the ovals and sculpted it ( making the first cuts can be very intimidating!), sloping down toward the front and sides, then carved into a modified V shape in the back.

For the drumsticks, I stuffed two waffle cones approximately halfway with Rice Crispy treats. Then the cupcakes were placed in the top to round out the drumstick, and the shaped fondant for the leg bone was attached to the pointed end of the cone. I crumb coated the legs with buttercream.

I then filled and crumb coated the entire turkey body, attached the drumsticks with skewer into the body of the turkey; and covered it all with fondant, using the texturing techniques described by Rhonda . Then the wings, as created above, were positioned into place.

With the leftover cake scraps, I cut 1/2" cubes, toasted them, and mixed with vanilla custard.

The custard will help adhere the cubes to each other and to the cake.

The lettuce, cranberries and oranges were created from chocolate clay.

Using an airbrush, the turkey, fruit and veggies were colored for more texture and effect.

Notice that for my "platter", I used Mame's Autumn leaf tutorial to create leaves and placed them on a oval cake board, lightly dusted randomly with gold luster dust to give the appearance of a porcelain platter.

Photos by Rhonda Christensen and Jacque Benson

All Rights Reserved- 2009

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

Autumn Maple leaf tutorial

Mame's Maple Leaf Instructions

Mame Recckio Wolfe-1/05/09

Maple Leaves:

1. Color gumpaste w/Ivory gel color
Ivory gumpaste takes Fall colors more naturally

2. Roll out gumpaste thin on flat side of CelBoard.

3. Lightly dust CelBoard with 50/50 Mix [Confectioners’ sugar/Cornstarch]

4. Cut out various sizes of Maple Leaves

5. Vein leaves using Maple/Grape leaf veiner

6. Using CelPin, soften edges – right side of leaf down

7. Slightly pinch along center vein

8. Place on gently crumbled foil squares to dry naturally

9. Dust in various Fall colors of petal dust [Brick/Golden/Kiwi/Pumpkin/Red]

Mame's Custom Made Petal Dusts

10. Steam

Leaves can also be wired
1. Follow above instructions but roll gumpaste out on grooved side of CelBoard

2. Turn board over
3. Lightly dust board

4. Place gumpaste on board and cut out Maple Leaf

5. Dip 26 gauge wire into gumpaste glue and insert into central vein

6. Vein with ridge-side up on veiner

7. Soften edges – vein side down
8. Allow to dry on foil squares
9. Cover wires with green or brown floral tape
10. Dust with petal dust
11. Steam

Mame's Autumn Leaves

Tutorial was created by Mame Recckio Wolfe-1/05/09-all rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced without the permission of the author.

Copy written © 2009 - Present Year Created by the author of the above work – Mame Recckio Wolfe