I am doing a King of the Jungle baby shower theme cake and would like to make some palm trees that will stand up on the top tier. Anyone have any tips on how to make these look good would be so helpful!!

I should probably mention that I have practiced wrapping pieces of fondant around a dowel and it looked OK but not that great. So any help on how to make the trunk of the tree look like the trunk of a palm tree would be great!

I saw a cake here on CC (sorry, I can't remember who made it!!), but they used pretzel sticks for the trunk, and did the leaves in fondant or gumpaste. It looked like they were individually cut out and glued on. They were very cute!!

I did one on my jungle cake - http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1741843.html
I used floral wire, pretty thick gauge, and wrapped it in a spiral, and then wrapped in gumpaste. This gives it a )( look all up and down the trunk (sorry, I don't know how to explain that). Then I made each leaf out of gumpaste and attached to a floral wire, leaving quite a bit hanging down. I let them dry prior to putting on the tree. Then I stuck a glob of gumpaste at the top of the tree (remember it's hollow), and stuck the wires down into it. I covered the top with little coconuts. I put a dowel through the bottom of it (again, it's hollow, but now the glob at the top keeps it in. That is stuck in the cake. HTH

Here are the ones I did. The second one is made with pretzel rods and the first one is a dowel rod and modeling chocolate formed around it. Both sets of leaves are gumpaste

I did palm trees out of pretzel sticks, and I flattened tootsie roll midgets and cut out triangles and placed one by one on the pretzel. If I had to do it again I would use gumpaste but do it the same way.

I made these little palm trees with a dowel.. I cut small circles out of rolled out ivory fondant and stuck two on each side then worked my way down, I then mixed vodka and brown americolor and painted the fondant and made the leaves with just a leaf cutter and put lines in it with a knife like fondant tool and stuck them on top.

I am doing a luau theme cake, and I wasn't sure how I was going to do the leaves of the palm tree. Thanks for all the GREAT ideas, I think I got it figured out. But I wanted to give a suggestion on the tree. The large toosie rolls work great! In the past I just warmed them a second and molded and cut to look them to look like bark and they are thick enough to where the dowels will stay in place. Thanks again for the palm ideas!

I used Snyder's pretzel rods. I used the Wilton embossing/cutter wheel with the attachment that is wavy on one side and flat on the other, found here: http://www.wilton.com/store/si.....AD375C41A8 for the bark around the pretzels. I just wrapped them around the pretzel and "squished" the top together. I used the middle wilton leaf cutter to cut out the leaves (50/50 gumpaste and fondant mixture), they were pretty thick, and left them in the largest wilton flower former found here: http://www.wilton.com/store/si.....4B3944F520
until they were dry. (probably about 6 hours or so) once they were dry I used melted and colored almond bark to attach them and used a toothpick to pull out the chocolate a bit to look roughed up like the small leaves at top of a real palm tree. I left them to completely dry and harden up with the bases of them stuck into a wire cooling rack so they wouldnt fall over

kitty122000 - awesome trees! That is the best idea wrapping the fondant like that and then ruffing up the bark with a tooth pick!

This thread came at the best time and has offered the best ideas!!! YEAHHOO

So funny this thread came up...I am doing a beach cake this weekend and I started making a palm tree last night with gumpaste. I made the tree trunk and then I made the leaves but I'm not sure how I'm going to attach the leaves at this point lol. Good to see some ideas....I might have to start over.

I made this cake and used pretzel rods and royal icing. I made the leaves days ahead of time and then glued them to the rods. Let me know if I can help any more.

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1296979&sub=1357794

cattycornercakes ~
Just make up some ''gumpast glue'' to attach the leaves.

Thanks for the compliment!

Candy melts work really well as a glue also