The Making of a Thanksgiving Wooden Barrel Cake

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this tutorial, I will show you how to execute the cake above. I love making cakes like this one because I am able to do all the designing ahead of time and simply bring it all together at the last minute. This is a perfect thanksgiving cake! Click here for more views of this cake.

THE PROCESS.

(1) First make the wood panels. This is done via a method of dry fondant paneling. Read more about this method here.

i. Color fondant light brown or ivory and roll into a slab.

ii. Leave the fondant to firm up a bit.

iii. Use a wood grain impression mat or tool to make the pattern on the fondant.

iv. Use a pizza cutter and a ruler to divide the slab into panels measuring 6″ by 1.5″. Cut the top of some of the panels at angles.  Leave them to dry.

v. Brush the panels with brown color paste mixed with vodka and leave to dry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2) Next, make the pumpkins. A tutorial for this can be found here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(3) Next, make the leaves.

i. Color fondant into various shades of brown, burnt orange, pale red, yellow and moss green.

ii. Using maple leaf cutters, cut the fondant into leaves of various sizes.

iii. Make veins on the leaves with a fondant wheel or veiner if you have one.

iv. Dry the leaves on flower drying cups.

v. Brush the edges and parts of the leaves with brown color dust and steam them to set the colors. Leave to dry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(4) Make the wooden cake board. Tutorial here.

(5) Bring the cake all together. Bake, frost and stack a two tier cake. Place the cake on the wooden cake board. You only need to crumb coat the cakes when frosting as you need a bit of roughness on the frosting for the panels to stick to it better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(6) Stick the panels around the cake. Roll out black fondant and cut it into 1/2″ strips. Wrap each tier with two strips of black fondant. I love adding a bit of realism to my cakes and so I opened a panel in front of the bottom tier and brushed the frosting underneath with cocoa powder to make it look like dirt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(7) Finish the cake by topping it with the leaves and pumpkins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s all there is to it. Happy thanksgiving!