Palm Tree

Here's a palm tree I made for this cake, and how I did it, but I didn't actually end up using it.

For how to make the cake is here, for the pirate, please see here. The post for the boat and treasure chest is here.

You will need:

Plastic Dowel
Brown fondant (uneven colour) with Karaya Gum
Green fondant with Karaya Gum
Rolling Pin
Green Royal Icing
Card/paper

I started by making the tree trunk, My ball of fondant was coloured to light brown, I then mixed in  Karaya Gum (see here) to strengthen the icing. Once this was fully kneaded in, I began to mix in more dark brown food colouring, but instead of kneading it until the colour was even I stopped when a marbled effect could be seen.

I rolled the fondant into a sausage shape that was fatter and slightly longer than my dowel that I am using to reinforce the trunk.

Note: I am using a plastic hollow dowel, which has a relatively large diameter. I believe it is possible to use a smaller dowel - although I haven't tried it yet - if I was going to do a small solid dowel I would wrap the wires for the leaves around the dowel before the next step.

I cut the sausage shape into chunks and remoulded them slightly before pushing them onto the dowel. Once they were all onto the dowel I gently rolled the trunk on my work surface to help the trunk sections merge slightly.

The plastic dowel should emerge from the base of the tree, as this will be used to 'root' the tree into the cake. Set up the trunk so that it is vertical and stable.


The leaves will need supporting as they dry, to do this I used boxes and rolled up kitchen towel held into shape with rubber bands. Sort out how you will support the leaves before you begin to cut them out.

Firstly cut paper/card into an elongated leaf shape for a template. Roll out the green fondant icing and use the template and a sharp knife to cut out the leaf shapes, add slits to the sides of the leaves, each diagonal sloping towards the trunk, the slits can be fanned slightly for added depth. You'll want about 12 leaves for the tree. Cover the icing to stop it from drying out.

Into the top of the trunk I placed 4 wires and shaped them to give the curled leaf shape. I draped the fondant over the wires, which then sagged until they rested onto the provided support. I then added a dab of green royal icing to help cement the leaves into place.

Next I positioned the 8 wires for the top layer of leaves. Cut the leaf shapes and draped them over the wires.

Another dab of green royal icing to help cement the leave in place was added

And to hid the colour differential I added a circle of the green fondant to the centre top of the tree. The whole tree was then left overnight so the royal icing could set firm and the fondant could fully dry. Then the supports were carefully removed.

>finished tree picture coming soon<