Penguin Beach Cake Tute part 2

Isn't he cute?  I borrowed a surf board from my neighbor girl's littlest pet shop as a pattern for my surfboard.  It was easier to make him laying down then standing on the surf board.

My little swimmer was originally supposed to have a duck floaty, but my husband said it did not look like a duck head, so I tore it's head off!  LOL
To make the water is pretty simple.  It works better with buttercream, but I had used royal icing which dries pretty quick.  I scooped some buttercream into a separate bowl and add the light blue food dye.  Don't mix it all the way in so it is swirly.  Cover the section where the water will be thinly with white icing.  Take the blue and "plop" mounds all over the white.  Take your spatula and swirl it all around, having a tiny bit of white swirlies is good.  Use dark blue in the piping gel and swirl it over the water, but do not completely cover the water.  See the different colors in the water?  It dried very sticky on top of the royal icing and some of my "sand" fell in it at the show and I could not get it out.  :(

I made the sand out of crushed cinnamon graham crackers.  I think next time I need to make my royal icing thinner to hold the sand better.  I'm also thinking a shaker to pour out the sand would be better then using my hands.
 I used red dusting powder to make the daddy penguin's sunburn.  I just brushed it on dry with a paint brush.

I loved it when I saw the episode on cake boss when he made the coral out of isomalt.  I could not find any info. on how to make it and I had never worked with isomalt before.  I searched the web on how to cook it and came up with a lot of conflicting info.  I know I cooked mine wrong because it clouded up up, but I think it looked good on the coral that way!  LOL

You can do this with any kind of sugar, whether it be cane sugar, palm sugar or isomalt.  Isomalt is a type of sugar that is easier to work with.  Be careful when working with hot sugar, it is one of the worst burns you can get!  If you do burn yourself, do not pull the sugar off - run it under cold water to disintegrate it.   Give yourself plenty of time to work.  After the isomalt was ready I poured into a Pyrex measuring cup and colored it.  Next time I will have separate pots and leave it in the pot simmering while I color each color.

I put different size ice cubes in a bowl, I'm thinking of trying the ice from Sonic next time. I'll still use different sizes though.   I put the orange on one side of the bowl and the pink on the other side of the bowl.  I kept checking periodically and pouring out the water as the ice melted.  When the isomalt was cool (It will be smooth on top and look nothing like coral yet) I dumped it upside down on a paper plate and let it dry.  The bottom part is what looks like the coral, after it drys just break it into whatever sizes you want.

If anyone has any hints on working with isomalt, I would love to hear it!

For part one of this tutorial, go here: http://missyscakesandaprons.blogspot.com/2011/05/penguins-at-beach-cake.html

Here are some pictures my husband took of me getting my cake ready for the show.

Now you know what the cake shows look like when everyone is scrambling to get their cakes together before the show opens!
Thank you for joining me!
Missy