Tree Pose

Yes, I admit it, I happen to be one of those annoying people who can stand in the yogic 'Tree Pose' endlessly. Sometimes I even find it relaxing to stand around on one leg. No, I am not extremely fit, so it must be some center of gravity thing. Keeping a fondant tree standing on a cake however is not relaxing at all. Just the thought makes me break into cold sweat! Nevertheless, I have committed to producing a standing tree on a cake for N's friend's birthday. It is standing tall and firm on the styrofoam block but whether or not it will stand on a soft cake remains to be seen.

I have seen a tree tutorial on the net before, Joylicious cakes has one I think. it involved wires and I have always been one of those people who cannot bear the thought of having wires sticking into cake. I mean for god's sake stop sticking wires with balloons and stars into cake. it's disgusting! I even stopped watching cake shows on television which suggest you put in styrofoam balls, wires, even pieces of wood in your cake. How is that even a cake anymore? Why don't they just make a sculpture out of mud and take a bunch of cupcakes along and say "here this is for show, and this is to eat"!

having said that, I realised all too soon that a tree without wires was going to be too heavy for a cake. I tried Rice Crispies smooshed together with melted marshmallows (too heavy) and a cookie cut into a tree shape (too fragile) and then I decided to go with the wires, with one small exception. The wires will not touch my cake(Thank you Joylicious!). So the tree won't be edible even though it will be covered in edible stuff, but the cake will be.

I have used some specialised cake equipment to make this tree but they are by no means necessary. So here is what you need:

You can get Tylose powder and the 'food safe' wire at CCDS if you are in India. If you don't have leaf cutters you can use a paper template, though that is much more tedious. And if you don't have the silicone veiner you can just score lines on the leaf with the end of a toothpick. You also need floral tape or masking tape 

Colour your gum paste (fondant mixed with tylose powder) green. The shade doesn't matter. Roll it out as thin as you can. Remember to either use a non stick surface or lots of icing sugar to prevent it from sticking. Now use your cutter or your template to cut out leaves. How many leaves you need will depend on the size of your tree and how full you want it to be.

cut the wire with a wire cutter into 4 inch lengths. You need as many pieces as there are leaves.

Gently push the wire into place where the stem of the leaf would be. I find that if you gently rotate the wire while putting it in, it is easier.

Next, you use your veiner to create the leafy texture or if you don't have a veiner, just score leaf like lines with a toothpick.

If you are using a veiner, please remember to brush each side nicely with cornflour otherwise you'll just have a sticky goopy mess which will be hard to take out from the mould. I didn't put the cornflour for this photograph. So the leaf you see here didn't make it.

adding veins to the leaves just makes them look more realistic.

After all the leaves are made stick the free ends of the wires into a styrofoam block and let the leaves dry overnight.

Ah..so pretty! I would have done O'Henry proud methinks if I had been the one painting that last leaf on the tree. 

Once they are dry you can shade them with a little green or brown food colour diluted with lemon juice.

Now take 3-4 really long wooden barbecue skewers that are safe to go into cake, We put them into food all the time after all. Push the skewers about two inches deep into a styrofoam block. Now use masking tape or floral tape which is available at CCDS to bind the part of the skewers that are sticking out, together.

take some long pieces of wire (I am told they are food safe but will still not put them in the cake) and wrap them around the skewers forming branches. Take a look at the photograph below to get an idea of how the tree structure should look.

This is the fun part. wrap the wire stems of the leaves around the branches you have just created. Don't rush this step because the leaves are extremely fragile.

After you are satisfied with how your branches look with the leaves on them, take some brown coloured fondant and gently and carefully wrap in bits and pieces around each branch, making sure all the wire is covered. Leave to dry overnight.

Take a small cake board and make a hole in the center. Remove the tree from the styrofoam block and push the exposed part of the skewers through the hole. 

So now when you put the tree on the real cake, the wooden skewers will go inside the cake and there will be a cake board between the wires and the cake. 

I will be covering the cake board with green fondant so that it blends in with the cake. You have to wait for another post to see it all come together on a cake.

Note: 7th August 2013

The tree stood!