Hi All,

I'm making a wine bottle cake for a 40th B-Day. How do you get the fondant to look like "glass" for the wine bottle?

Also: Any other "tips" and "don't make my mistakes" are most welcomed!

Thanks Everyone!

-Mary

u can use several coats of edible spray alquer or spray pam and let that absorb in but it might stay tacky with that one.

If you luster dust your fondant and then steam it, the dust will melt and become very shiny...it looks beautiful. Just be careful not to overheat your fondant.

Thanks LuluSweetArt & sugarshack,

I didn't know about heating up the luster dust once mixed into the fondant...VERY cool idea!!

I think I'm going to try to "paint" the Fondant bottle with Black airbrush color. It looks like it comes out pretty shiny, and I'm told "dries" with no sticky, or tacky feeling.

I'm also looking at maybe ordering some SugarVeil. --I think I might be able to "wrap" that around a bottle and let it set...not sure if this "sugarveil" stuff actually dries (sets-up) hard in the end, or if it's "shiny" looking like glass when it does....

Wish me luck!

The Cake Boss (Carlo's Bakery in NJ) on TLC always uses a steamer to make his fondant shiny. Personally, I've never done it.

I do not have a steamer.
I did a bottle cake last month and I polish the MMF with a little crisco.
I posted the pic.

I just go over my fondant bottles with a wet paper towel. sometimes it takes several times to get a shiny appearance.

Hi

I paint my bottle after they are finished with 1 part vodka to 1 part liquid glucose. Mix it together and paint it on.

It dry's quickly and stays shiny.

Here are some examples:
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1425300.html

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1419306.html

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1418369.html

Hope this helps, best of luck

Kim

I just looked at your pictures and they are awesome. I'm saving your tip for future reference. Thanks for sharing!

Kim those bottles are awesome! I stream my fondant, but they don't stay that shiny! I am going to remember that tip, also!

Kim,

I just had a chance to look at your bottles. WOW! is all I can say...they're amazing! I love that look. I'm going to give it a try this week.

Question: do you tint the "glaze" or the fondant? --for example to get a green looking bottle???

Thanks again to everyone for your input, I'm feeling more and more confidant and inspired now!

-Mary

Hi and thanks for all your kind comments - wow !

I don't tint the glucose mixture, but I do paint the colour onto the fondant first and make sure I have my light and dark areas painted - hard to explain but down one side of the champagne bottle for example I made a little lighter in colour to give it a shadowing effect like a real bottle.

Once the colouring drys, I then paint on the mixture. Best of luck and let me know if you need any other info... happy to help.

Hope this makes sense.

Kim

I have tried the steamer on the fondant and it works pretty good. I did it on a black gift bag and it came out very nice. Looked almost glassy. I bought a small hand held clothes steamer.

When I did my wine bottle, I just painted gel color on with vodka, and it came out really shiny and stayed that way. I did the base fondant in a green, then mixed green and yellow for the painting color.

Kim, your cakes look amazing! would corn syrup & vodka work the same as glucose & vodka?

Does the glucose and vodka dries eventually??

I used corn syrup and vodka on my wine bottle and does eventually dry. I used a 50/50 mix and it stayed tacky for a while...I would suggest a higher vodka ratio.

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1737944

Also I did a green wine bottle (tinted the fondant) and then also added more juniper green to the vodka before I added the corn syrup. I painted the mixture onto the bottle with a pastry brush. I was thrilled with the results.

I painted my wine bottle the color I wanted, then I used confectioners glaze. It looked like the real thing. The photo doesn't do it justice, but it works really well!
http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1908769

For my jagermeister bottle, I took my Americolor gel and thinned it down a bit with vodka for easy painting. It dried shiny.

If you go on Amazon.com I ordered a little hand held steamer from there and it was only like 15.00. It works great just like the big ones on all the cake shows. It heats up quick and holds enough water to do a big cake : )

I usually put a little color and vanilla extract mix and paint it on, sorry tried to post from my picks but couldn't get into them but all of my picks I've done are like that and the shine stays forever, never have a problem. Take a look.

Thank you all for all this great info!

The steamer works great for a semi-gloss, but with the vodka and corn syrup/glucose you get that high gloss shine.

**Update**
Okay...I made the vodka/corn syrup glaze and did NOT like it. Nope! Why? well, at first when I applied it looked shinny and smooth yaaayyy but then by the time it dried it looked 'blotchy'!!! does that happen to everyone or was it just me??

Anyway, I did my first wine bottle crate cake for my SIL 30th anniversary and I had such a struggle that I wanted to cry ---I made my gumpaste bottle and it dried fine but I felt that when I brushed it with the glaze(vodka/corn syrup) it made the bottle soft and it slightly made it spread. At the same time my edible ink printer runned out of ink so, I had to use paper images and the label for the bottle wouldn't stick because the 'blotchy' glaze had dried... I almost (almost!!) put the whole darn cake in the garbage and order an Albertson's cake --the side panels were not perfectly straight either-- and no I did not have enough fondant to re-do the panels and did NOT feel like making fondant at 3am

Sorry for the long story but I had to share...I knew some of you would understand.
BTW, I'm a hobby baker and still in the learning curve...and yeah I tend to be a perfectionist and a bit on the OCD side

Rosie2,
I'm so sorry this cake was such a pain for you. I hate it when cakes fight back
Let's see if we can troubleshoot a few of the issuse in hopes you won't have this much frustration next time.

How long did you let the bottle dry? It takes a while. I dried my gumpaste on the bottle for 2 days, then I removed it from the bottle and flipped it over so the inside could dry for another day. So it took at least 3 days for the bottle to dry.

For the vodka corn syrup, when you say blotchy was the shine blotchy or the color blotchy? I did apply a couple of coats to my bottle. I applied them back to back without any drying time between them. I'm wondering if there was any shortening on your bottle that caused the syrup/vodka mixture not to adhear to the bottle that would cause the blotchiness in the shine. Can't think of anything else that might cause that. If the color was blotchy it could be that the color wasn't mixed fully into the vodka/syrup mixture.

My panels were not straight straight either but I am learning to get past my perfectionist issues and step away from the cake and come back 15 minutes later with fresh eyes and see what I think. And if you've ever looked at a wooden crate there is nothing perfect about them. They have gaps, uneven panels and seams So really your crate was realistic!

If you're going to do panels on cakes, I highly recommend Sugar Shack's Boxes and Bows DVD. It has an outstanding walk through on working with panels, making them even and hiding seams

What did your sister think? Was the cake a hit? I ask because my guess is you're the only one who saw the minor imprefections.

Sillywabbitzzzzz, you're an angel!!!!! yessss, how did you know the cake was a hit!! my SIL was thrilled because I did it as a surprise for both of them (they love wine) and she even took pics and put them in her FB page aggghhh (blussing here)

Ok, about the bottle I did dried it for 3 days, but never thought about turning it (blushing again) --- (I should know better!!)

About the glaze---it was the actual glaze, not the paint, that became blotchy and maybe(yikes) maybe I didn't mix well (??) I mixed it with my brush but not a whole lot....

About Sharon's videos I've viewed them at my local library some time ago, but you know what? I'm gonna order the boxes and bows from her!!

Thank you again dear Sillywabbitz, and yeah it was me that looked at the imperfections because people that don't do cakes don't see it all. My nephews at the reception were telling everyone that her aunt had made the amazing bottle cake LOL
BTW, I haven't upload my bottle cake pic since CC wasn't allowing me to but I will so you can see it

I figured it was a BIG hit I learned the trick about drying the inside from Sugar Shacks blog tutorial on the bottle cake. I would be lost without her!
I have several of her DVDs and I rewatch every few months for those extra little reminders...I have a tendency to get lazy

I can't wait to see a pic.