Acorns fall hunting theme

Thank you Sandy for a wonderful blog post!

I had a groom's cake for December that was to follow a hunting theme.  The mother of the groom found a cake on the internet and it served as the inspiration of the groom's cake that I created for them.  I cannot give credit to the original creator because I was sent the picture not the link on the web.  Here is my interpretation of a hunters groom's cake.

They wanted a cake with camo, tree trunk, initials, arrow, deer antlers, gun shot shells, and bullets on the cake. It only seemed natural to use gumpaste fall leaves and some acorns to help to give this cake a "fallish" feel to the cake.  The cake was placed on a camo puff base and a leather tooled look for a table cloth.

Decorate The Cake just came out with an acorn mold which was perfect for that extra finishing touch to this cake.

Supplies needed:
three piece acorn mold from DTC
medium brown fondant
dark brown fondant
brushes
gumglue
flower glaze (confectioner's glaze), optional
cornstarch, optional
freezer (too big for the picture)

Supplies needed

The three piece DTC acorn molds comes with two molds that are for acorn bases and the largest mold is for two different sizes of acorns caps.  (Forgive me, I don't know the scientific terms for the two parts of the acorn.)

Using the medium brown fondant, mold an acorn cap for the size acorn you are making.  The cap needs to be even with the top of the mold but slightly concave.  You do not want it even.

Molding the Cap

I made one acorn base to begin with and popped it out and used it to approximate the amount of fondant I needed for each acorn base. Roll brown fondant into small log.

Fondant log

Place the fondant log in the mold and I used the end of a paint brush to push the fondant down into the mold. I wanted to be sure that I had the fondant completely shaped to the ball shaped base.



Pushing the fondant into all parts of the mold

Do not fill the base even with the top.  I'd say about 1/16" from the top edge or the two pieces will not fit together properly.

Filling the base

Because the fondant will be misshapened if you pop it out of the mold fresh (at room temperature), I stick the mold in the freezer for about 10  minutes.  Then one can pop the acorn base out with no problem.



Popping out frozen base

Cap and base completed

I used gumglue attach the base to the cap.

Gluing base

Here's a picture of the acorn together.  The cap has a little bit of a gap between it and the base.  Acorns often lose their  caps so I didn't  want the "fully" attached look.

Finished acorn

THE FOLLOWING IS OPTIONAL:
My acorn looked a little dull to me, so I painted the base with flower glaze (confectionery glaze). Here's a picture of what your bottle will look like if you haven't opened it for a couple of years.  Hubby had to take it to the tool shed to get it open.  Notice the tool marks on it.  I have to admit when he left with the bottle, I was wondering what I would put the glaze it if he busted the neck of the bottle.  (Note to self: open bottle every week or so to keep bottle from gluing shut.)

Tool marks on confectionery glaze bottle

An acorn cap has a dull dusty look to a real one, so I dusted the cap with cornstarch to dull it and give it that dusty look.  Sorry no pictures of painting the glaze on the base or dusting the cap with cornstarch. I was in a hurry to finish up and get the groom's cake delivered.  Guess I messed up on my time management on this cake.

Here is a close of of some of the acorns I placed around the base of the cake with the gumpaste leaves. More were placed on the top edge of the bottom tier.

Product Used:
Acorns Small


Sandy Swart aka sewsweet2
Check out my cakes at:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/sewsweet2
or my cake photos on FaceBook:  Sandy Swart Cakes
To see how I make my puff bases check out the tutorial at:
flickr.com/photos/sewsweet2/sets