I need help! My BF's family is having a family reunion on Saturday June 30th. I want to make a cake that will Wow them (of course who doesn't!) But I have so many ideas I want to do that I don't know what to do!
here are a few parameters that I want to stay withen.
-Tiered Cake
-No more than 3 tiers
Area that we are having it at.
-Restored building part of the historical society right along the mississippi river.
-A lot of the family is from this area and has roots back to the indians that settled in the area
I thought about a stack of books with family history for each one, but that will have to wait until next year as I am hoping to be packing to move about that time, plus we will have two house guest that week (that are not here for the family reunion)
So then I was thinking a stack of presents with a gift card or something with a saying about how family is like a gift, to treasure etc..
But I am open to any ideas. I can do just about any shape cake (I am only missing the oval set) and I have some rounds, no squares, but wouldn't mind purchasing more rounds or squares b/c I will have to eventually.
So can anyone help me narrow it down or give me some other ideas?
Thank you!!
edible images of family members on small fondant/gumpaste plaques that you place on the cake. bonus is people can actually save them.
These plaques would be cute used on a "family tree" made from fondant or buttercream.
working off of jmt1714's idea....
make cookies that look like people w/ arms raised above heads.
faces are the edible images (that's a lot of scanning -- but probably could get all on only 1 frosting sheet)
bottom tier -- members from the Grandparent and older generation.
middle tier-- the parents
top tier -- the children
and on top of top tier a little baby in a bassinet
"each generation builds on the the previous" (or something like that)
(in the absence of availability of photos -- do icing faces and generation/time period appropriate clothing details)
----------------
or
make one of those spiral road cakes (3 tiers, road wraps around) and it's the journey his family has taken...so way at bottom it starts w/ deco that looks like the home of the original Native Americans in his family and progresses to today (cellphone?)
I love the photo idea, however right now that is not feasible. My BF's cousin is working on their family history and gathering photos. She started it last year and plans to have it done next year, but this year she is expecting to get a lot of the original photos from all of the families. So I am planning on doing that next year with the stack of books for their family history. (So I already have next years planned as you can tell 
)
I also plan on having an edible image printer by then so it will be a lot cheaper for me to do it.
It is definitely a keeper idea, just not quite feasible for me this year.
take on:
can you feel the love tonight
and the bible verse where God promises Abraham descendants greater than all the stars in the sky
so a cake w/ a starry sky...
shining stars -- our family -- yesterday, today and always
would work as multi-tier (your original request) --
bottom tier earth w/ people
middle tier the sky w/ stars
top tier white w/ message
and could do stars on wires popping out of cake.
as much I like seing it on cake, it is not my forte (not saying I won't do it, but you know what I mean) I ran all of these by my BF and he really wants me to do a stack of books. I really want to wait until I can get pictures for next year, but who knows. I have about 4 more days to decide before I need to start baking so keep the ideas coming if anyone has something else to share!
stack of books:
family bible
fav. book of many family members
"A History of the <name>es"
even parodies of famous book titles
'----
what might look really nice
3 books stacked
4 book -- an open bible leaning against them.
bible open to those pages bound in heirloom bibles where you can record births or marriages, etc.
could do either the births page or marriage page.
or even a family tree page
and have a verse that is meaning full to the whole family.
a sketch that might help:
(can you import jpg into autocad? -- i really have to learn that program!)
Using Doug's sketch, I see a family tree on the right page, and on the left have it look like the page in the family bible where you copy down important dates (marriages, births, deaths...). I think that would look very nice, and would be special to the family because it's personalized.
It sounds like you're going after the book suggestion but here are a couple of other ideas. This is what I imagined after reading Doug's original post about the stars - I'm going to try this when I get the chance. I need simple 
Fondant stars with the names of everyone in the family - you could use different colors for different branches of the family. Then place on the sides of the tiers according to generation. On the top of the top layer the family name, crest, etc. with Grandma & Grandpa's stars. Around that tier, their children. Next tier - grandchildren, etc. We don't have very many in the 5th generation yet, so I would probably do the Abrahamic verse around the bottom with the few stars that belong to that generation.
I have a huge family. At our reunion last summer a 10" cake was made representing each month (Jan - snow, Feb - hearts, etc). The people having birthdays in that month went up around the cake and everyone else sang Happy Birthday to them, then the next cake. Everyone sang 11 times. One advantage is that we had lots of flavors and types, even pie! We don't get together often so it was fun to see what cousin has a birthday the same month as mine. The cakes were very amateur - I could've done a much better job!
Again, these are more suggestions rather than help with the book project.
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%
