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Hi,
I have been asked to make a cake for a customer the has been designed by her 8 year old daughter. The cake looks like an ice cream sundae that has 2 tiers, if that makes sense. The bottom tier needs to be surrounded by swirls of ‘whipped cream’ topped with a strawberry. I am going to make the strawberries from flower paste and wanted to make the swirls from fondant but would like them to have that piped effect, any ideas please,

Many Thanks,
Dotty

Hi Dotty

You could do this by coiling and twisting the icing and then stacking it into a cone shape. This would take a fair amount of icing, which although edible, wouldn’t be very nice to eat. How about piping swirls with chocolate ganache? The ganache would set once you make the swirl, and the added bonus ….. it’s chocolate, so all yummy edible! You could do the same thing with buttercream icing. I think the largest piping nozzel which I have is a Wilton 8B. See the piping nozzels here:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=largest+swirl+piping+nozzel&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&ei=wkZyV5GjFdLFaLOakOAL

This is just a suggestion and I hope it helps 🙂

EDIT: Just had another thought! How aboout making the strawberry with marzipan, which again would be edible and taste nice? …. some plastic pastry nozzels are much bigger than the metal cake decorating nozzels.

Hi,
Many thanks for the suggestions, but as the cake has to be covered with fondant I think I will go with the first suggestion,

Dotty 🙂

Hi Dotty

The cake can still be covered with fondant if you use the other two methods but good luck with the fondant method. Another thought …… I would probably make the fondant ‘whipped icing cone’ onto a separate cake board and have it as a topper. It will be pretty heavy and dowelling the cake would be sensible. 🙂

Hi,
Oh, its not for the top of the cake, if you can imagine a 70’s style Black Forest Gateaux, its like the smaller piped swirls of cream that were decorated with a cherry, only they want strawberries. The top tier is having a ‘melted chocolate’ fondant layer topped with a large cherry :0 as I said designed by her 8 year old 🙂 Also could you tell me the best medium to use for colouring a white chocolate buttercream ? There seems to be conflicting advice on gel or powder,

Thanks again,
Dotty

Forgot to say, I need it too be pink !
thanks

Oh dear me! I really got the wrong end of the stick! As long as it works for you.
ProGel from Rainbow dust is great, works with chocolate buttercream just fine. Take a peek here for all the colours: http://www.thegreatcakewarehouse.co.uk/rainbow-dust-progel-concentrated-food-colours-252-c.asp
.. or google it by name.
If you’re using just chocolate you’d need oil based colours or powdered colours. For chocolate buttercream Progel will be fine.