Burlap Bow Tie

Recently a friend of mine asked if I would create a cake for a baby shower to welcome a sweet little baby boy named Hudson.  Great name!  The best part was that the baby shower was to be super chic and adult.  And by that I mean....no diaper games! Ha. 

She wanted me to be creative and sent these pictures for inspiration....

Love it!  Burlap it is!  And oddly enough, I came across this burlap bow tie in my fashion research, some time ago, and fell in love!!  I knew at some point I would be making this out of sugar.  This cake is the perfect opportunity!

Here is another one I found...

Right on top of a bottle of wine....that's my kind of fashion;)  Lol.

But seriously burlap isn't just for potatoes or sack races anymore.  Here is a hip burlap clutch from Etsy.com

And how about this burlap look from Donna Karen's spring 2010 collection...

I wonder if she's itchy;)

Project Runway even created a challenge that required the designers to use burlap to build a runway look.  I loved this one.

Super cool. 

The only way I could think to get a good textured look though was to pipe!  Sounds like a ton of piping.  Actually it wasn't so bad.

First I had to make my burlap colors. 

I decided to use antique white Fondarific and tint it using cocoa powder.  I like to use cocoa when making brown colors because the less food coloring I can use, the better.

Once I had my color, I added some tylose to a bit to make the bow.  This way the bow will dry firm and it will keep it's shape.

I have shown the bow process before in my Cake Spade post.  This time however, I made the two pieces separately because I wanted the loops to point straight out and look like a bow tie.


After the pieces were cut and allowed to set for a bit (about an hour), I used a number 2 tip and some brown royal to pipe a basket weave design.

I started with a single line down the side.

 

Then I piped small lines across.

 Then another line down.

 

And alternating lines across....and so on and so forth until the whole thing was covered.

That little nugget above the big one was the practice bow.  It kind of looks like Shredded Wheat Cereal!

Now I let the bow dry over night.

I knew this was going around the bottom tier, so for the top tier, I wanted to include his name.

I saw this fun shape and decided to try and recreate it out of gum paste.

Here is the template I made...

I cut one out in green and a smaller one in a cream color so I could layer them like the invitation.

After they were dry for a bit, I piped his name using extra pressure on the ends of the letters to give them some character.

I then went back over one side of each letter with white straight lines and the other side with a dotted line to make it look sewed!

Looking good.  I got this idea from my buddy Lindy who is an artist and uses this technique in her work...

Here is her blog link.  She makes some really fun art.  I have a few pieces in my house!

http://www.lindyalane.blogspot.com/

Here is the cake all put together....

 

Sweet!  By the way, this could be a cool idea for Father's Day!  Bow tie cake!!!

A couple of announcements before I go.....

I will be teaching some classes with Cake Central soon.  They are starting a live cake class program that will be traveling to different cities across the US.  This is a link to the info....details will be up soon.

www.cakecentral.com/classes

Here is one of the classes I will be teaching.  It's a one day class inspired by my A Cake Fit for McQueen. 

It's gonna be fun!...piping, painting, fondant texture, and a hand sculpted skull!

Also, there are couple new classes on Craftsy.com that I want to share.  Click on the pictures to get to the site and receive a discount.

 

 

 

 

That's all for now.  Don't forget to follow the blog for updates and more fun Fashion Cakes.  Just click the button to the right that says Join this Site.

 

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Lastly, I would like to share a picture I took at the IDDBA in Orlando last week...

 

Aaaahhh!!  The Dough Boy!  He was my idol as a child:) Maybe that's why I was a chubby kid! Ha.

 

 

 

Bye!