Realistic Animals

It is so rare that we get the chance to see our cakes once they zoom out the gates in Carlos’ trusty van, and so I always get a thrill when clients email us photos from their big day. This week newly weds Lexi and Tim sent us these beautiful pics of their very quirky wedding cake, courtesy of Welsch Photography

Margie is well-known for her super-realistic animal figurines, and believe it or not, this is far from the first pet wedding cake we’ve been asked to do!






Creating a realistic animal cake involves several tricky steps and up to three days of labour, even for someone as experienced as Margie. While the main body of this cat is made from choc mud (most other flavours are not stodgy enough to mould into organic shapes) more delicate areas such as the head and tail are carved from Styrofoam.


Once the body is covered with one large piece of icing, it is important to work quickly in order to prevent it from hardening, making it difficult to create detail. Margie always covers the head last, using a thinner, single piece of fondant, working quickly with her thumb and frilling tool to get into the tiny facial details. If you’re attempting a realistic animal at home, using the jaw line/neck area is a great way to hide your joins.




Lastly, the realistic color is achieved with the use of an airbrush, so it’s really important that the client has provided lots of detailed references in order to to get an exact match. The real secret trick, however, to making your animals look freakishly real, is the use of piping gel on the eye, giving it that naughty gleam