Food into Cake? Cake into Food?

Making a cake into something that resembles another food is always a weird thing. It is certainly deceiving to the brain ("Is that really a burger? What am I looking at??"), but always a BLAST for me to create!

Alfredia came into my shop looking for a groom's cake, but wasn't sure yet what to do for it. When she told me that her fiance was the owner of 520 Wings on Victory Drive, I knew we had our answer!

I began work on the big bowl of wings the day before her wedding. The first step was to create all the pieces. First, I made a bunch of sugar celery and a little bowl of "ranch dressing" to go on the side of the cake.

The celery was created from pale green sugarpaste. I formed them to shape with my hands, and let them dry over a wooden dowel rod to keep their shape. When they were ready, I airbrushed them slightly for depth, and used a fine paintbrush to add the lines. For the dressing, I just took some frosting, crumbled some chocolate cake crumbs in, and piped it into a sugarpaste "bowl".

Of course, the next step was the wings! Being a vegetarian, I was sure to pull up tons of reference photos to make sure I was getting them right. Alfredia sent me some photos of his wings, too.

I started with chunks of pale orange fondant, and formed them to shape. Next, it was time to airbrush! The airbrush color is specifically made for cake decorating, and is really just watered down food coloring. I started with a layer of orange airbrush color to add depth, and them used a darker brown to add the "burnt" areas.

But they were still looking a little flat. The answer: a paintbrush, and some darker brown food color for accent areas!

Now they're starting to look like wings! Once they got onto the cake, they were looking great, but I knew they needed a little extra "umph"...

Ah, that's it! The sauce on wings makes them glossy! So I whipped up a little orange piping gel, and used a big fat paintbrush to spread it onto the wings in the bowl. A few little drips of the "sauce" and now we were in business!

What fun!! I always think people probably feel a little deceived when they cut into a cake that is in the shape of another food, but I suppose that is part of the fun!

Until next time!