Hi

I will be entering a cake competition in October and I have found a wine-crate design that I would look to work on. However, I am stuck on the bedst medium to use for this project.

I will be using cake dummies and most likely be covering to sides of the cake with panels (with a woodgrain effect). The edges of each panel will have "teeth" so that the corners will slot into each other. Which is the best medium to use? Gumpaste...Mexican paste...pastillage?

Do they all take colour very well? I will probably paint the panels with food colouring and then use a wood graining tool to get the effect that I want.

I don't know what Mexican paste is, and I think pastille is fondant, so I would say the best medium for the boards/planks would be gumpaste which dries nice and hard.

Pastillage is different from fondant and gum paste. It has a fairly short working life, but it dries extremely hard--hard enough to be cut with a saw and sanded, and it can be painted. It is often used to make scale buildings and support pieces for a display. See
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/topic/69493-demo-intro-to-pastillage/

Pastille is a lozenge, sometimes medicinal but also can be candy.

See this about Mexican paste:
http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopicp-6869418-.html&sid=7bb449e430f51b256f5dbc660ec48a72