This last week was my sister's birthday and since she loves surfing, what better than a surfing-themed cake?
I came up with the idea when I found this awesome post
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=350061.0 some time ago and I enlisted the help of my mother who, although a great baker, had never decorated a cake before.
Since this was our first time working with fondant we didn't know quite what to expect, luckily my mom (she ended up in charge of this part) managed to manipulate the stuff wonderfully.
Our cake was a basic yellow cake which we coated with "bramble" jelly in order to cover it with the fondant. Since we clearly didn't have a surfboard shaped pan we ended up making one in a 9x13 pan and a square 9x9 pan. The former serving as the main body of the cake and the second one being cut up into triangles to make the front and back.
As far as decoration goes we mixed up gel food-coloring and water and painted in a previously outlined combo of hibiscus flowers and funky stripes (this was my job) using yellow, orange, red and green. For the letters we used a small tube of pink icing we bought. After that the fins were molded with fondant and applied using water and later slightly painted with the coloring.
Finally to present our ginormous cake we used a large tray which had been protected with foil first and afterward (as is suggested by the link above) covered with a mix of light brown sugar, sugar and cinnamon to give the appearance of sand. When it was time for the cake to be brought out we picked a couple of hibiscus flowers and along with the eighteen tea-lights celebrated in style.
I'm glad to say that the cake was a success and the birthday girl was very surprised. Also even though most other times I've tried fondant it's been disgusting this one was actually pretty good even if extremely sweet.
Pics:
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