Greenhouse Decoration

[JimJam]

Hey lovely bakers,

I have been baking for years, it's my love and passion. But the one thing I have always been terrible at is decoration.
Whatever I try and do ends up looking like a toddler has attempted it for a school project.

I have set myself a challenge to make my girlfriend an allotment cake for her birthday. The allotment is her pride and joy and I thought to myself "why not make a replica of the allotment for her birthday!"

My thoughts so far are:
- Gingerbread shed
- Marzipan potatoes
- Glazed icing tomatoes
- Sugar glass pond

BUT the one thing I just cannot work out, is how to make a green house. Just making it with grey icing feels like a cop out, and I have been trying out different ways of using glacier mints and melting them down, both in shortbread and on their own. But so far it doesn't look right.

Has anyone tried this before, or does anyone have any ideas I could try?
Any advice will be very very gratefully received.

Very very many thanks.
Jam x

 

[Norcalbaker59]

instead of melting hard candy, you should try to make sugar glass. Just google “sugar glass recipe”. Once you have a liquid, pour it into whatever form you want

 

[JimJam]

Thank you!
I did wonder about doing this.

I just wondered how I would get it into the right shape without it cracking

 

[Norcalbaker59]

it’s a custom piece, so obviously you’re going to have to figure out the design yourself. If it were me I would start by sketching out a design. I would try creating small candy squares using a silicone baking mold, kind of like a ice cube tray, but with more cavities.

I would would use a 50-50 mix of fondant and gumpaste to create Strips to put around each square. Then mold them kind of like stain glass in two panels to create the walls of the greenhouse. The gumpaste would need to dry for 24 hrs min.

Then start putting the walls together. and start building the rest of your structure around the walls.

Project like this is not for beginners.