3D Finalist
Fringe
by Lee Patterson · submitted Jul 15, 2011 · 2011 contest
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Description
After looking at each and every entry in the gallery for the 2009 and 2010 competitions it looked like it was so much fun I was determined to enter in 2011!
Looking through the page of designs, this one captivated me immediately and I could look no further. I mean it's cute, it's funny, it's got zombies! A perfect design for my fellow Threadless fan and zombie loving bestest friend's birthday ^^ And best of all it seemed perfectly suited to my favourite medium - cupcakes!!
Having chosen my design and planned, daydreamed and procastinated, I finally started making marshmellow fondant with the help of my trusty assistant Dave (aka my husband/Mr. Awesome) who specializes in stirring and mixing and going to the shops to get me my ingredients from all over town. After a grueling 3 or 4 hours, I had all my colours ready. I decided to buy white and black because MMF white is more ivory and black was just easier to buy ;)
Next up I started making heads by rolling lumps of fondant into balls and eyes by stamping out tiny circles using an eyelet and flattening them with a balling tool and outlining them and drawing pupils with an edible ink marker. It was tricky getting those little buggers to stay still while I drew on them without breaking them and more than a few went into the rubbish.
I like to do the easy stuff first and leave the hard stuff for last so I numbered the designs from 1 to 29 and ranked them from easy to hard. I did 4 on a Thursday night and then 8 the following Friday (my day off), 8 on Saturday, 8 on Sunday finishing up on Monday night with the large end piece.
Some things like the hands, continents and arrows I drew on paper and used that to cut out fondant, but the smaller the pieces you're working with the harder it is to be detailed it stretches and it tears and the more it's handled the sticker the fondant gets!
The fiddliest ones were gluing the bricks on the bunker, the spaceship and the muscled man. The guns were a little tricky too. I ended up rolling out the melted ice for global warming 3 or 4 times before I was satisfied. I'm quite pleased with how the pig and the infected man turned out.
The asteroid impact I couldn't figure out how to do for the longest time until suddenly the idea of flames came to me and now it's one of my favourites. But I really enjoyed making the brains! From the beginning this was the bit I looked forward to! I rolled a small ball and let it harden and then used that to shape two circles of fondant into hemispheres which I then painted the inside blood red with food colouring, getting it all over my hands and face in the process. I have no idea how. The brain is one long thin rolled out strip all coiled up.
I managed to make everything stick on with only sugar glue but a couple of the heavier pieces need a little help attaching in the form of a little wire or two - the clown's hair, the spaceship's outer ring, the exclamation mark and the strongman's arms. I needed a wire to hold the ammo box and babies bottle and arrows to the surfaces of my not quite flat cupcake tops.
Finally after 32 hours or so of backbreaking work (seriously, I kept getting a cramp in my back from leaning over my workbench/coffee table) all my cake toppers were ready!
For the cakes themselves I decided to go with a packet mix to save time and got 2 packs of my favourite Betty Crocker Vanilla and coloured it pink for brains and flavoured it with raspberry essence which smells so good I want to wear it as a perfume.
The last step was to ice and cover the cupcakes with fondant, attach the toppers, draw on the blanket, snowflakes and spaceships and stick on the labels. This, since there were 29 of them took pretty much 12 hours to accomplish. Then I had to take some photos and make an insert for the cake box so they wouldn't move during transport and get a few hours of sleep before my trusty assistant drove me and said cakes to work where they were presented to the birthday girl. They were duly admired by all present and the words "best cake ever" and "surely you'll win" were bandied about. Then with much reluctance and many "are you sure you want them eaten?", they were finally consumed, although many of the toppers were kept for desktop ornaments ^^
So all up, to achieve my masterpiece it took approximately 2kg marshmellows, 2kg icing sugar, 1kg purchased white fondant and 250g of black, Food colouring, 2 packs of wet wipes, 1 pack of disposable plastic gloves and a few rolls of paper towels, a whole lot of soap and water for washing my hands constantly to get the colour and fondant off and somewhere in the vicinity of 50 hours of labour.
Looking through the page of designs, this one captivated me immediately and I could look no further. I mean it's cute, it's funny, it's got zombies! A perfect design for my fellow Threadless fan and zombie loving bestest friend's birthday ^^ And best of all it seemed perfectly suited to my favourite medium - cupcakes!!
Having chosen my design and planned, daydreamed and procastinated, I finally started making marshmellow fondant with the help of my trusty assistant Dave (aka my husband/Mr. Awesome) who specializes in stirring and mixing and going to the shops to get me my ingredients from all over town. After a grueling 3 or 4 hours, I had all my colours ready. I decided to buy white and black because MMF white is more ivory and black was just easier to buy ;)
Next up I started making heads by rolling lumps of fondant into balls and eyes by stamping out tiny circles using an eyelet and flattening them with a balling tool and outlining them and drawing pupils with an edible ink marker. It was tricky getting those little buggers to stay still while I drew on them without breaking them and more than a few went into the rubbish.
I like to do the easy stuff first and leave the hard stuff for last so I numbered the designs from 1 to 29 and ranked them from easy to hard. I did 4 on a Thursday night and then 8 the following Friday (my day off), 8 on Saturday, 8 on Sunday finishing up on Monday night with the large end piece.
Some things like the hands, continents and arrows I drew on paper and used that to cut out fondant, but the smaller the pieces you're working with the harder it is to be detailed it stretches and it tears and the more it's handled the sticker the fondant gets!
The fiddliest ones were gluing the bricks on the bunker, the spaceship and the muscled man. The guns were a little tricky too. I ended up rolling out the melted ice for global warming 3 or 4 times before I was satisfied. I'm quite pleased with how the pig and the infected man turned out.
The asteroid impact I couldn't figure out how to do for the longest time until suddenly the idea of flames came to me and now it's one of my favourites. But I really enjoyed making the brains! From the beginning this was the bit I looked forward to! I rolled a small ball and let it harden and then used that to shape two circles of fondant into hemispheres which I then painted the inside blood red with food colouring, getting it all over my hands and face in the process. I have no idea how. The brain is one long thin rolled out strip all coiled up.
I managed to make everything stick on with only sugar glue but a couple of the heavier pieces need a little help attaching in the form of a little wire or two - the clown's hair, the spaceship's outer ring, the exclamation mark and the strongman's arms. I needed a wire to hold the ammo box and babies bottle and arrows to the surfaces of my not quite flat cupcake tops.
Finally after 32 hours or so of backbreaking work (seriously, I kept getting a cramp in my back from leaning over my workbench/coffee table) all my cake toppers were ready!
For the cakes themselves I decided to go with a packet mix to save time and got 2 packs of my favourite Betty Crocker Vanilla and coloured it pink for brains and flavoured it with raspberry essence which smells so good I want to wear it as a perfume.
The last step was to ice and cover the cupcakes with fondant, attach the toppers, draw on the blanket, snowflakes and spaceships and stick on the labels. This, since there were 29 of them took pretty much 12 hours to accomplish. Then I had to take some photos and make an insert for the cake box so they wouldn't move during transport and get a few hours of sleep before my trusty assistant drove me and said cakes to work where they were presented to the birthday girl. They were duly admired by all present and the words "best cake ever" and "surely you'll win" were bandied about. Then with much reluctance and many "are you sure you want them eaten?", they were finally consumed, although many of the toppers were kept for desktop ornaments ^^
So all up, to achieve my masterpiece it took approximately 2kg marshmellows, 2kg icing sugar, 1kg purchased white fondant and 250g of black, Food colouring, 2 packs of wet wipes, 1 pack of disposable plastic gloves and a few rolls of paper towels, a whole lot of soap and water for washing my hands constantly to get the colour and fondant off and somewhere in the vicinity of 50 hours of labour.