Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A
How to achieve ice cube effect?
I need to make a cake topper that looks like an ice bucket filled with beer bottles. In fact I made the model (bucket and bottles made from sugarpaste with added Tylo), and used chopped up piping gel (Wilton) for the ice cubes. It looked quite good! Only problem is that overnight the sugarpaste has softened (model left out to dry), and I can only assume it’s from the moisture in the piping gel. Any suggestions what else I could use to to make mini ice cubes? I wondered about crushed up Foxes Glacier Mints, but I think this will only give a crushed ice rather than cube look….thank you
I need to make a cake topper that looks like an ice bucket filled with beer bottles. In fact I made the model (bucket and bottles made from sugarpaste with added Tylo), and used chopped up piping gel (Wilton) for the ice cubes. It looked quite good! Only problem is that overnight the sugarpaste has softened (model left out to dry), and I can only assume it’s from the moisture in the piping gel. Any suggestions what else I could use to to make mini ice cubes? I wondered about crushed up Foxes Glacier Mints, but I think this will only give a crushed ice rather than cube look….thank you
Hi Juleswz4
There are a few ways of making the ice cubes however it depends how quickly you need them.
I’m thinking that you need miniature cubes? You could use doll’s house miniature icecubes or make them with isomalt poured into a mini ice cube tray. Both can be found online by googling
‘doll’s house ice cubes’ ‘doll’s house ice cube tray’ or miniature candy moulds.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dolls-House-Miniature-Pub-Accessory-Pack-Ice-Cubes-015-/220590116423?hash=item335c320e47
Your idea of glacier mints would work as long as you don’t over crush the sweets, put them in a bag and give them one hard wack enough to split them. Another way could be to pipe out cube shapes with piping gel on some parchment paper and leave them to dry. Piping gel does eventually go hard, I use it for making tears and dew drops on flowers.
Last but not least, you could use gelatine in miniature moulds. Here’s a recipe which can be scaled down:
http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_8127716_make-clear-gelatin-ice-cubes.html
The gelatine could also be put into regular moulds and cut down to size with a sharp blade or scissors.
These are are a few ideas to play with and hopefully other members may be able to share more tips.
Many thanks for your reply MIWL. In the end, for speed, I went with the Glacier Mints whacked with a rolling pin. They look quite good but it’s tricky to get nice regular ice cube shapes so a few got wasted. I’ve left some chopped up piping gel out to dry ( this was much easier to cut into neat shapes) to see how long it takes to dry for future reference. Whole Glacier Mints would be quite good for larger ice cubes, providing the mint flavour wouldn’t affect the cake they were used on. Thanks again.
