Thursday, July 17, 2014

How to Pipe Peacock Feathers

So it has been so long since I did a blog post but life and the business has been busy and it is only getting busier. I wanted to share a recent cake I made with you guys and show you how I accomplished the look if piped peacock feathers.
 
 


This cake was a slight challenge for me since I wasn't sure what to pipe the feather on with buttercream or royal icing. I started with royal icing because it gave bright vibrant colors but ended up going with buttercream because I wasn't achieving the look I wanted with royal.
 

 
I made a template for how I wanted the center of the feather to look and traced it onto the side of my cake.
 


 
From there I started to build my feathers with color based on how the actual feathers look.
 


 

 
The centers of the feather can all be different so just mix of the shape and symmetry of the centers to achieve a more realistic look.
 

 
I piped in a tan buttercream for the middle part of the feather and later went back and painted it gold to give the feather more of a pop.
 


After I had filled in the feather with color I took a skewer and drag lines through the feather to make it appear more realistic.
 


Then I started to add the tendrils that make a peacock feather come to life. You can be pretty free flowing with this portion since no two feathers are the same.
 


 
I was really happy with how the finished cake turned out. I think the feathers look very realistic and beautiful for the side of a wedding cake. (Sorry about photo quality it is very hard to snap a good photo at this venue).
 
 
 
 

So in the future if you want to pipe feathers instead of painting them I hope this little tutorial will help with that. I will try to get some more posts up in the coming weeks. I just have to find the time in the schedule. Thanks for reading!