Wedding Cake Pillars

[cakerookie]

I am doing a cake with cast sugar. The cake will sit on three sizes of cast sugar plates. But I need the pillars to be round. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to make round pillars with cast sugar? I generally do not have a problem coming up with a solution for cast sugar items but this one got me.

[momoreg]

Round, meaning cylindrical? How bout splitting open a pvc pipe?

[panini]

CR
latex tubing.
Med. supply place,hardware, etc.
definetly want pics of this one.
pan

[cakerookie]

Pan are you talking about the medical tubing like is used on blood pressure cuffs or something like that? I thought about taking plastic pillars like from Wilton and making molds from them with playdough or plastilene. But I will check out the tubing and momoregs idea sounds pretty good too if you could find a way to close off the ends so the hot sugar does not run out before it hardens. Thanks momoreg, Pan. How are you doing?

[panini]

CR,
Did you know Chrose has returned?
Listen, I know I sound short but I'm swamped!!! Let me ask you something. I'm of the old school and have noticed that labels now, may not be the same. When talking about casting sugar, are you talking about a mixture of sugars and such, made plyable and pushed into a form or mold? And when you talk about poured sugar are you talking about cooking sugar and pouring it into mold, cutouts and such? These are the definitions I'm used to, but have encountered persons talking about casting sugar but describing poured. I'm so confussed
I can remember using the tubing in the past. I think I got it from CR. Hold on and let me check, they might also have some insight.
http://www.chefrubber.com/Shopping/s...t=Latex+Tubing
If this doesn't go copy+paste. Let me know

[momoreg]

Yes, I was under the same impression. I don't know if pvc could withstand the heat of poured sugar.

[cakerookie]

Yes Iam talking about poured sugar same as casting basically. Sorry Pan also momoreg did not mean to confuse you. What I think I am going to do is make molds from Wilton Cake Pillars and pour the sugar into them. Thats the plan at the moment. I have someone that saw a cake that was completely edible plates and all and she was wanting to know if I could make the stand? The cake plates are heart shaped which is no problem. The pillars are round and clear. I was thinking why not cast them out of molds from Wilton Cake pillars and give it that Greek look. Hey Pan, momoreg what do you think? Think I can pull it off? And Pan, don't worry about being short thats OK, I just thought you maybe sick or something was worried about you thats all. Say CH is back. Great. Is he OK? Been thinking about you CH. And yes momoreg pvc would withstand the heat. There is a flexible pvc that is used for this. Splitting the pvc in half would be great if I could figure out howto plug the ends. Could just glue the two pieces together using the hot knife technique.

[LWP]

I've never tried making molds for sugar work, I'm ashamed to admit I put very little time into practicing that art. I wish I would make myself work at it more. Anyway, I use silicon plastique to make molds for chocolate when I can't find a mold I need and it works great, I just have no idea if it's suitable for sugar work or not.

[cakerookie]

Yeah LWP it is suitable for sugar work. My only problem is I cannot get it where I live and don't have time to order any. I can use playdough or plastilene for the molds. Only problem the playdough is shot after one use.
Thanks for the info though I appreciate it.

[chrose]

Hey CR, thanks for the nice thoughts. Now on to your situation. I have a couple of suggestions to consider.
Create a ball of sugar and take a dowel rod of the size you want and pull it through the sugar essentially creating a skin around the dowel.
You could also take a ball of sugar and start to pull a rope from it and wrap it around the rod. It doesn't have to be a wooden dowel, anything would work really. You would also though have the strength of the rod. Trying to pour a tube of sugar I would think could lend itself to potential problems. If you use PVC of any sort you have the potential of odors or anything else glomming on to the sugar from the heated plastic, and PVC does not smell very pleasant when its hot. I don't know if you've gotten to pulling ribbons yet, but a ribbon pulled around a tube would look very elegant. I just don't know how practical a pure sugar tube is. I thought I had another idea, but it escapes me just now. I'll let you know if I come up with anything else.
And again, thanks for the thoughts.

[momoreg]

I agree about the potential problems of pure sugar supporting any weight. Also, if it comes into contact with the cake (which is moist), you run into more potential for disaster.

That said, if you wanted to make a mold, you could also make a silicone mold around something cylindrical, that already has an end, and you'd have a permanent mold you could use again and again.

Good to know about the pvc, even though it's stinky!

[panini]

CR. I'm not only concerned about the pillars holding but the stress on the plates themselves. Cakes can get heavy. If I was going to pour plates, I would definately go with geometric shapes as support. Preferably with more then one conecting point on each support to transferthe weight right through in a downward fashion. I don't think highly of pillar supports to support weight. I've seen cakes done where someone has used pillars and cardboard on the bottom of the pillar. They don't seem to transfer weight because I've seen the pillar go throughthe carboard. Shoot, I've been up over 50 hrs, does this make sense? I would pour plates and suppot with triangles, maybe a scroll shape, maybe poured swan shapes. I don't know,I guess I would use the shapes over the pillars. This will also let you lower the seperation without losing light paterns.
Hey if your interested in finding what theheck I'm talkingabout, I can shoot you a sketch. ciao

[momoreg]

Get some sleep, panini!!!

I have no clue what that was!!

[cakerookie]

Hey CH glad your back hope you are doing well. I like your idea about the dowels. And I did not think about the smell of the pvc either good point.momoregs idea is a good one too but I cannot get silicone molds.And yes Pan I understood what you said. You are referring to structural support of the plates on top of the pillars. I had already considered that from a preivous thread that was posted by CH sometime ago I forgot what thread it was.There will be three plates heart shaped. A 6 a 10 and a 14 inch. I may end up cutting the 14 back to a 8 and just have a 6, 8, 10 since this is only a mock up so to speak. What do you guys think? I considered the thickness of the plates and figured maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch in thickness for the top 2 tiers and maybe an 1 inch to a 1 1/2 for the bottom, does it make sense? Hey CH, starting to experiment with chocolate. Any ideas for a true rookie!

[chrose]

Originally Posted by cakerookie

Hey CH, starting to experiment with chocolate. Any ideas for a true rookie!

Learn to temper! Seriously!