I need help! A bride sent me this picture of the cake she wants. It is from the knot and says this about the cake
"Cake Trios Small white square cakes mimic the main attraction -- a white-three-tiered fondant cake with a punched-out blue and orange vine pattern. Blue sugar-made hydrangeas soften the look while simple risers (no plastic columns here!) add height to the display. Cake: Mark Joseph Cakes, Brooklyn, NY"

I have never been able to get such sharp edges in fondant. Is it even possible? and how do you punch out designs like that? and do you just buy those plastic risers?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Yes I find it very hard to get sharp edges and I use fondant all the time. Sometime these cakes are decorated dummies and then you can get really sharp edges. To me the punched out designs would be using a leaf cutter to get the design and then colouring the indents or another way would be cover cake with the colour first and then use white on top and you would cut down to the under layer with the leaf cutter. I would be interested in what others think. A nice plain but elegant cake.

I would use ganache under the fondant for the ultra-sharp edges, then use a cutter and remove the leaf shapes right into the ganache, and insert coloured pieces into the holes. However, I doubt I could do as neat a job!! I suspect we're looking at either a) cake dummies, or b) cakes covered in rectangle and square pieces to get the desired thickness without sacrificing the sharp edges.

I would cover the cakes in blue or red fondant. Then I would measure the sides of the cakes and dry panels of fondant with tylose. When you make the panels cut the desired shapes out of the cake and then place somewhere to dry for 1 -2 days. You want the panels to be stiff but still able to be cut if needed. Then line up your panels and cut off excess to match up sides.

Thanks for the advice. any more ideas? if you cut out panels it seems that it might look weird and 'patched together' might loose some of the simplicity. but i'm not sure. question about the ganache. is that a really hard ganache so it is hard even at room temp? is that why it would make sharp corners? Wouldnt it still break if you pushed against it to get real sharp edges? I agree and think this is probably a cake dummy.
I think cutting out the leaf shapes and then inserting the colored fondant sounds easier and cheaper (less fondant). any other advice?

The leaf cutouts are indented so I would probably cut out the leaf and then replace with colour leaf but this would have to be thinner than the cake covering.
The way I would do it would cover cake in a thin colour fondant and then cover with the white. No chance then of getting messy leaves which can happen trying to get them smooth once placed in. Good Luck

So it looks like i should cover the cakes thinly with colored fondant then cover with white and cut out the design on the cake. Does anyone know where to get the square cake separators? I searched under lots of names and all i get are different kinds of pillars etc.

mcstaylor What I would use would be blocks of polystyrene ( what dummies are made of,not sure what you call them there) and either cover with ribbon or left over fondant. You can see on my website Wedding Cake Pg3 Lisa H Pg5 Spring Pg6 Leanne.Craig Pg8 Dana Pg11 Andrea B. Hope this helps.

You could try covering the cake first in modeling chocolate which holds its shape pretty well when cool, then cover that with fondant. You can color white chocolate whatever color you want, or buy colored chocolate melts.
It works best if made the day before so it can set up. It gets pretty hard but once you start kneading it it softens up and rolls out nicely, then will stiffen up to give you a sharp edge.

If you are using a thin colour layer under the thicker white fondant, then you only need to apply that on the sides where you have the cut out.

Thanks do you think covering the separators in ribbon would be better or fondant?

If you can get the ribbon to match I would use ribbon but fondant would be okay but I don't know about you but my bottom edges are not always perfect when they are cut.