Not Just Like Clay

About a year ago, I got this crazy idea in my head that I could make beautiful cakes. I enjoy baking immensely, even more so now that I have my own kitchen to explode in. My first attempt was the house cake I made last year for my house warming party. The cake was a mold and the icing was crumby but it was cute. I then made a cake completely covered in inedible fondant and decorated with fondant cut-out leaves. That actually turned out very well as my first attempt at smoothing a cake with fondant. My elaborate baking dreams have mostly been a vague inclination since.

That being said, the cake I made for my 1-year house party turned out really good. The icing wasn't as crumby, and even though I ran out of the color I wanted to use for the roof, I had enough of a complimentary color to finish it off. This house was quite a bit more elaborate than the last one (with shingles instead of flat icing for the roof, and yellow gel in the windows instead of just colored icing). Jack said it was impressive.

While browsing through Cake Wrecks one day, I came across a cake that was made to look like a Stargate! It was awesome! LDS and I have dreams of making that cake some day. We're going to have a Stargate party. I already know what I need: fondant for the gate, piping gel for the event horizon, and something to make it look like metal. Maybe pearl dust will do. I'll have to come back to the Stargate cake later.

A new idea hit me yesterday. I recently learned of a decorating compound called gum paste (yes, I was mostly "how the heck do they do that?!" when it came to cake decorations). One of my Etsy friends (she has the MOST AWESOME blog in the world. Seriously, her recipes are unbelievable) wrote about the birthday cake she made for her mother that was decorated with gum paste butterflies. I need to make these butterflies! But I also needed to learn about gum paste, having only worked with fondant for my cake sculpting before (and lots of people really don't like fondant, even if it's made to taste good).

Most of my research said that shaping gum paste is a lot like shaping clay. I've worked a lot with clay in the past, and I can say that gum paste is nothing like clay! But that's not going to stop me.

So, I won't tell you what this idea is for just yet, but here's a little gum paste sand castle to get you thinking! The dusty "sand" is brown sugar, and I plan to apply more when the thing actually gets on a cake (and it will, you'll see!).