3D
Demise of Mr. Flamingo
by sara gervey · submitted Jul 25, 2009 · 2009 contest
1 / 45
Description
well for the "demise of mr. flamingo" cake i used a boxed pound cake mix so it would be sturdy enough to carve out the body of the flamingo and keep the neck in tact at the thinnest part. then i made a simple icing out of confectioner's sugar, shortening, vanilla and water. i used about 1/3 of the bowl to ice the cake and left the rest in the refridgerator to use for the grass later on. once the cake was iced and ready for the fondant, my assistant & i tinted it pink and also added peppermint extract to give it some flavor. i was worried about how the fondant step was going to go because i'd heard people's bad experiences with it and also on ace of cakes there's always some kind of fondant meltdown/crack/rip/etc.! although i hadn't worked with fondant before, it surprisingly went on relatively easy and smooth! great success! next we tinted some white fondant with vanilla extract and rolled it out with black fondant to make the beak. i then piped the feathers and the outline with a black gel icing. a small circle of white fondant with some more black gel icing was used for the eye and i topped it off with a silver dragee for an extra touch!
next came some gnome construction out of ready-made gum paste and colored fondant. i molded the heads and made the bodies and legs and let them set up overnight. while i waited for that to harden, i colored the rest of the icing that was chillin in the fridge an olive-y green color for the grass. i used a plain piping bag and tip and piped every individual blade of grass on the plate!
then back to the gnomes... next i molded the beards out of gum paste and began to form the hats. it was about this point that the gnomes proceeded to become leprous, as they're appendages began falling off every time i tried to add more components on! every time i would check on them, i would find a random arm, a lone shoe, or a stray eyebrow detached from one of it's 3 possible owners! this was extremely frustrating and after 2 days of working under those conditions, i was about ready to throw the gnomes out the window! i had to redo various parts of all 3 gnomes at several intervals and it just made the whole process take longer and me more annoyed!
so when i decided to rally in the end to the finish, i melted chocolate and painted it onto skewers and made gum paste tips for the spears to be stuck into the flamingo. yes that might be stretching the limit as to what's considered edible but after dealing with the gnome drama for 4 days i might start gnawing on a bamboo skewer out of pure insanity! then with gnomes at the ready, we quickly stuck them into the piped icing grass and hoped for the best!
next came some gnome construction out of ready-made gum paste and colored fondant. i molded the heads and made the bodies and legs and let them set up overnight. while i waited for that to harden, i colored the rest of the icing that was chillin in the fridge an olive-y green color for the grass. i used a plain piping bag and tip and piped every individual blade of grass on the plate!
then back to the gnomes... next i molded the beards out of gum paste and began to form the hats. it was about this point that the gnomes proceeded to become leprous, as they're appendages began falling off every time i tried to add more components on! every time i would check on them, i would find a random arm, a lone shoe, or a stray eyebrow detached from one of it's 3 possible owners! this was extremely frustrating and after 2 days of working under those conditions, i was about ready to throw the gnomes out the window! i had to redo various parts of all 3 gnomes at several intervals and it just made the whole process take longer and me more annoyed!
so when i decided to rally in the end to the finish, i melted chocolate and painted it onto skewers and made gum paste tips for the spears to be stuck into the flamingo. yes that might be stretching the limit as to what's considered edible but after dealing with the gnome drama for 4 days i might start gnawing on a bamboo skewer out of pure insanity! then with gnomes at the ready, we quickly stuck them into the piped icing grass and hoped for the best!
