Advice Needed On Attaching Ostrich Feathers To Cake
Decorating By pamalbake Updated 31 Jul 2013 , 9:29pm by pamalbake
I need to add Ostrich feather plumes to the top of my buttercream cake. The end of the plumes only have about an inch at most at the tip without feathers. I plan to hide the insertion, hopefully, with some white chocolate flowers and leaves.
My problem is #1- I know I need to keep anything touching and inserted into the cake, a food safe item, so 1st I need to figure out how to keep the feathers away from the cake.
#2- What to attach to the end of the plume to get some height to keep them away from the cake
#3- I'm thinking I should insert a straw into the cake and leave some above the cake , insert the feather tip and whatever extension is on it into the straw. Somehow I need to fill the straw so that the feathers don't move around. I probably need 3 straws for 3 plumes.
#4- If I wrap the ends in florist tape, I still need an extension and to hide the tape. The plumes are teal, the cake and flowers will be white.
I have teal and white satin ribbon also, but it didn't look good wrapping the end of the feather with that.
Any suggestion? I hope I made myself clear. Please see the picture below.
Thank you.
I have done this before. I used those little plastic flower spikes and filled them with melted chocolate the color of my fondant. I then stuck the feathers in the liquid chocolate in the spike and positioned them how I wanted them before the chocolate set. Then you just stick the spike in the cake. Voila!
You are more than welcome. Incidentally, this what I also do for those other toppers like the metal wires with fondant balls on them or stars or whatever you want to stick out of a cake. Just kink the end of the wire before you stick it in the chocolate and they won't spin on you. :-)
AHah! I wish I knew that 3 wks ago! I got so frustrated with those curved wires and fondant balls spinning on me and toppling over ( I tried swizzle straws), that I threw them all away and made a different design . Thank you again. Isn't this cake central forum fantastic ?
Well done Pamalbake! The feathers really add pizazz to the cake and they're really well arranged. I had to arrange ostrich feathers on a wedding cake once before, and although I used the flower picks (flower spikes), I was worried that the 1-inch stem at the base of the feather wasn't long enough to keep the feather upright in the cake. Using chocolate to hold the feather in the flower pick/spike is a good idea (holds it firmer than fondant/icing in the flower pick). My sister, however (who had just taken a course in millinery and hat making) spotted another obvious solution - just trim the feathers at the end of the stem to create a longer stem to insert into your flower pick! So easy and doesn't distort the shape of the feather either.
Thank you. Yes, the flower spikes were a lifesaver- using the white chocolate and I did trim a few feathers from the bottom- same concern.
Since I did brush embroidery, I didn't want to do the regular chocolate roses, and wanted something lighter looking. And I didn't want to take the time to make new modeling chocolate. This a wonderful technique at the link below, which is what I used. Ann Reardon's how to cook that -white chocolate flowers.
I would suggest collecting some wrapping paper rolls or paper towel rolls. I made quite a few petals, so I'd have back up for those that either didn't work well or broke. I kept running out of thing to drape them over for shape- using even my 2 mixers to drape the parchment paper over. Not quite curved enough. Everyone loved them. In fact, I had a request to make a cake next week with these flowers.
As far as the Ostrich feathers- this was my 1st time. If it is yours, I'd suggest getting feathers that were 12-14" long minimum. I needed teal and order 5-8" 1st time and they were very small. Couldn't use them. These were great and I found the right ones at featherparadise.com. Have several leftover, but that's ok.
These were perfect and fluffy.
I don't have a closeup picture, as you requested. My pics aren't great, because I assembled the cake in the pastry kitchen at the Ritz ( ! ) and didn't have a background for staging the cake. Here are top and back pics.
Good luck.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhcmeWkHb6k&list=SP2D2F4E4B08214BC2
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