Hi there

A friend of mine has asked me if I can make this Harry Potter cake:

I don't work a lot with fondant and when I do it's just for decorations. I also only buy the Wilton white fondant and I know that colouring it dark brown is probably going to be an issue so I am wondering if it would work if I painted it with a mixture of brown colour gel and vodka? I've seen this done when making fondant look like wood but I'm not sure if I can make the brown dark. I'm also thinking that painting it might make it look more authentic???

I am also wondering how the fondant in this picture is over-hanging the cake a little so the book cover is past the pages and not sagging over. Any ideas??

Thanks so much for any ideas/suggestions

Why dont you buy chocolate fondant instead?. Not sure whether you can achieve this colour by painting with brown gel and vodka. You may have to give a number of coates, reapplying after it dries.

Let the fondant over hang by about 1/4". first do the pages. ie. use a strip of fondant and paste it on the 3 sides. run a fork/icingicomb over it to mark the pages then place the fondant over the cake.  i suggest you have like a template cut out of paper for the size of fondant required and once you roll the fondant cut it to size and place it over the cake.   as for the bottom cover edge, cut 1/4' strips of fondant and place them. for the corners of the cover cut at an angle. hth

Thanks for your reply Suzied

Brown fondant would definitely be the easiest way to go but I dont think I can get it in my area. I am going to check today but I recall only seeing white, black, red and then multi coloured boxes that come with a small of each of four different colours....I only have a Michaels in my area and I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle making my own as I won't have time to practice before making the cake.

For the 'pages' I wasnt going to cover them with fondant....I was going to 'comb' my buttercream to look like pages so the only part of the book that would be covered in fondant would be the top and back with small strips along the bottom edge as you have suggested.  Although now that I am thinking about it I am wondering if placing fondant on the 'pages' would create more stability for the book cover overhang so it doesnt flop over.

In my opinion, i think it will be neater if you do the pages in white fondant. not really sure, but i think some people put a bit of tylose into the fondant for the cover to keep it straight. i am not comfortable with that, bcause the people will be eating it.  you may also add brown to the white fondant and get it at least light brown and then paint it. i wonder how it will look if you paint it with only brown gel and no vodka.  last night i made two dummy books  for the 1st of june. the 3rd will be h.potter  and the real one will be a fairy book out of cake.