Fake food??

[k8et]

so my mom is making fake food for a display. she got some kind of self-drying sculpting product from the art teacher at school where she works, and has been really happy with the results.  now, she wants to use a product that is liquid enough to pipe (like icing) and decorate a fake cake.  any ideas of a product that she can use, that ideally is self drying (no baking required), can be painted or tinted, and will last??

she may end up using royal icing (the stuff on gingerbread houses) because it will get hard, but would rather have something permanent so these pieces last.

thanks!!!

katie
http://knittykitty.blogs.com

[bevrockin]

Most grocery stores or bakeries have fake wedding cakes on display.  She might ask them what those are made of, if the folks who work there are nice.  

[aryn]

I'd go to the hardware store or Home Depot and look around. I'm thinking something like caulking... some sort of sealer. They might be sort of smelly though.

[amareluna]

The problem with the caulking is that most of it comes out in beads..what about wax? I'd get a disposable cake decorating kit (they have them at grocery stores now really cheap) and melt wax and use it to make it...as long as it doesn't get too hot where you store it, it'll keep.

Also, there are tons of 'food' molds on ebay that can be used for plaster, soap or candles.....here's just an example:

http://stores.ebay.com/SoapAndCandleMolds-com-Inc_W0QQcolZ2QQdirZ1QQdptZ7QQsclZallQQsotimedisplayZ2QQtZkm

HTH

[io]

plaster?

[amareluna]

plaster...s'what they say..lol

i've personally never tried it...

[holywhack]

I work in the grocery store bakery with the fake wedding cakes...and we always just use royal icing...we change out the displays every so often and just soak the dummy cakes in water for a couple of hours and the icing kinda just melts off...but that's off-topic, you were asking what to seal it with, I'm sure the stuff your mom got would work, or I think that you could just spray it with a clear NON yellowing polyurethane  (sp?)  or something like it.