***Hi everyone! This is our second “Gravity Defying” cake tutorial. Of the two, this has a more involved structure (to handle the heavier suspended teapot decoration). If you will be suspending something lightweight (like candy boxes/containers, plastic bottles or cans, gift bags, etc.), then you’ll want to check out our quick & easy tutorial HERE!
In this two part cake video, you will learn how to create teapot and teacup decorations (Part One) and a support structure to give a gravity defying effect (Part Two).
Materials for Teacup & Teapot (Video Part 1):
5 inch styrofoam ball (or smaller) — *Our teapot weighed just under one pound. I wouldn’t recommend anything heavier for this type of support structure.
Fondant (we used Liz Marek)
Tylose Powder, for firming up the fondant
Red Fondant
Rice cereal treats (we used 3 22g. Rice Krispies Treat Bars)
Piping Tip 10 (or similar) for creating large & small dots
Bubble Tea Straw
Americolor Coloring Gels – We used Chocolate Brown & Ivory for the tea color
Piping Gel -(for attaching decorations)
Form for teacup shape. We used a teacup, but any tapered glass or cup would work.
Something to use as a form for saucer (like a saucer or small plate)
Circle Cutters: These do not need to be exact, but I used a 2 inch circle cutter for the foot of the teacup, & a 2 ½ cutter & 3 ½ cutter for the lid of the teapot.
Extruder: Optional. We used our Makins Clay Extruder (aff) to extrude strands of fondant for accents.
Small and medium sized heart shape cutters for teapot
Miscellaneous- Toothpicks, small paint brushes, vegetable shortening, plastic wrap
Notes
You will want to prepare the teacup and teapot first, before assembling your cake. They need a chance to firm up so that handling them will not cause unwanted impressions.
Make sure to make the handles for teapot and teacup in advance, preferably 2 days (and more if you are in a humid area) just to make sure that they will dry in time. In case of breakage emergency, thread a piece of strong floral wire through a snake of soft fondant or gum paste and bend into position, leaving the ends of the wire exposed so that you can anchor into your teapot or teacup.
**Helpful Tip: For the handle of the teapot, draw a circle that is the same diameter of your teapot onto a piece of paper. (In our case, we traced around a 5 inch cookie cutter onto a piece of paper since our styrofoam ball teapot form was 5 inches.) Lay your soft fondant handle next to the drawn circle and arrange it to fit the curve. This is optional, but will ensure a better fit whenever it’s time to apply handle to the teapot.
Materials for Cake Structure (Video Part 2)
Five 10″ cardboard cake circles for the base, + an 8″ cardboard for our 8″ tier.
34 inches of solid 6 gauge copper wire (found in electrical dept. of home improvement store) -These are sold by the foot in most places. (For us, it was 89 cents a foot at Lowe’s).
Sharpened Wooden Dowel (just sharpen with small clean pencil sharpener)-¼ inch thick, 17 inches long
Lineman (heavy duty) Pliers–Optional, but necessary if you do not have your wire pre-cut in the store.
Hot Glue Gun
Frosted or fondant covered Cake Tier- Mine was an 8″ tier (4.5 inch height)
Cake base cover of choice (We wrapped ours with a plastic table cloth & stapled into position.)
“Tea Colored” fondant to cover wire- (We used a combination of Americolor Chocolate Brown & Ivory tinted fondant)
Piping Gel
Tape (for joining dowel to wire)
Fondant/tylose or Gum Paste to form spout
Bubble tea straw for barrier/and to join the dowel to the copper wire.
Fondant for “tablecloth” (we used an 8 ½″ x 8 ½″ square)
Red Polka Dots & hearts for tablecloth
Waxed Paper
Teapot & Teacup from the Part One tutorial
Could the teapot be made from ricecrispie treats the same size or would that be to heavy? I would love to make it all edible
Hi Cat! I’m not sure. I think on a much smaller scale, it could possibly work to do rice cereal treats, but I would do a trial run. My worry would be splitting as gravity works against it.
If you’d really like to make the suspended decoration edible, I would change the theme, and form a smallish bottle (which could work for soda, beer, chocolate syrup, maple syrup, etc. ) that would be more narrow & could really be formed tightly around the copper wire. You can use a straw as a barrier b/t the copper and the suspended decoration if it will be removed & eaten.
Our plan is to do a cake with a more involved structure sometime in the next month or so, but we first wanted to introduce simpler structures like the one in this tutorial as well as our recent “candy cake” tutorial. ;0)
Oh my goodness. That is too stinkin’ cute!!
Blown away u never let me down with ur videos
Amazing! You make all your creations look so easy it inspires me to try and do this sometime. Thank you Melissa & BeBe :)
Fab class as always just wanted to know is copper classed as food safe since the cake has to thread through. I know the bubble T straws is around the main part just wanted to be sure.
Hi Lilian – No, I don’t believe that there would be a food safety classification on the copper wire. We did wash the wire before using it, and I’m comfortable with the bubble tea straw barrier. As you mentioned though, there is that very brief contact as the cake is being threaded over. If you’re worried, I would just use normal sized drinking straws to cover any exposed copper until the cake is in place. ;0)
Awesome! Just in time for my son’s birthday too. He wants a gravity defying basketball cake. Thank you so much!
Thanks Melissa, I’m so glad! ;0) –
It so cute! I love it!
Thank you Melissa for another awesome video.
This is so adorable! I’ve been wanting to learn to make gravity-defying cakes, and this helps a lot! I’m just worried that I won’t get the holes in the right place on the boards. Especially on the smaller one that the cake will be on. Any tips? As always, many thanks to you both for all you do for us!
Thanks Luanne, so glad that you like it ;0) – –
I know that it can seem like a lot to take in at first! Once you get going, just taking it one step at a time, things come together quickly.
Once the copper wire is secured to the cake base, and you are ready to start working on your cake tier, just hold the cardboard cake circle that the cake will be on above the wire. Eyeball it and mark where the copper wire hits the board when the board is centered above the base. Cut a hole around the mark you’ve made, large enough to accommodate the wire/dowel. (You can slide the cardboard circle over the wire after doing this to make sure you like the placement.)
Thanks so much! I’m going to have to try a practice cake soon! =)
Very cute…..too much work for me :)
@Seabass~ Ha ;0) – It’s not as difficult as it looks, but by far the easiest gravity defying cakes involve suspending something so lightweight that you can simply use a sharpened dowel as your entire support, as we did in our “Candy Cake” video–SUPER easy!! —
https://www.mycakeschool.com/video-tutorials/gravity-defying-tutorial/
Great video. Love the tea pot, so cute. I think I would have made the “ugly bottom” the top of the pot and covered it with the lid. Just a thought.
Really well explained. Gravity cakes definitely require some planning and engineering. We should make the same money as an engineer to :)
Awesome video as always. I’ll have to try and make another gravity cake.
Thanks MsGF! That’s a good point about the lid. I thought about it, but the gathers of the “ugly bottom” were a bit too bumpy & wide to be easily hidden by a lid. So, I still would have wanted to smooth things out with that “cut away and replace” step. I just opted to go with the pretty side up ;0) —
Looking back though, if that bumpiness hadn’t been so wide, a thick fondant lid could have worked. I’m all for shaving a few minutes off of decorating time. ;0)
i love this =) thanks for this video… i have been wanting to see something like this for awhile. I do have a question though… I am doing my daughters bday party next weekend and we are doing a mad hatter theme and they have wanted a topsy turvy for awhile.. do you think this would still work well with that style cake and should I do the wire gauge from the bottom tier up or would the top tier be fine? it is only going to be 2 tiers; 10″ and 8″ ! Thanks so much
Hi thank you both so much M you are so talented i am in awe. Would you charge for the time involved? I would certainly love to get this, just wonderful. I love your tutorials so much and also your teaching really helps.
@Brittany– I’m glad that you are making this! I think that it could work either way, but with it being a topsy turvy cake in addition to the gravity defying teapot hanging off to the side, I’m leaning more towards the wire/support traveling all the way through everything. I think this will give you peace of mind that the center of gravity won’t be thrown off.
@Patricia- Thanks so much! I try to avoid pricing recommendations only because the going rate varies so much depending on your area. I would send a photo to a local bakery in your area and ask for a price quote to get a feel for what to charge. While it isn’t a difficult cake, it is a time consuming one since the teapot is like decorating a 2nd cake.
LOVE this idea and the tutorial is awesome! Here’s my question though, my customer wants a cake almost exactly like this one BUT she wants the teapot a cake as well. After watching the video and seeing what the structural base is I don’t think that’s possible. Here theme is High Tea and so the idea of changing completely won’t appeal.
Ok, HERE’S the question LOL, do you think a two piece base/wire system would work? When I originally saw the picture I thought the wire and base extended to the base of the teapot (I now know that is just fondant cover…). I am thinking that maybe a thicker wire then a soldering iron used to make a cup-shaped base could work. Leave sit overnight after covering all in fondant then placing the teapot cake. What do you think? My husband is extremely handy (thank God!) so I know he can do this but I wanted to check and see what you though as well. TIA
Hi Jennifer!! I’m so sorry that this is not my area of expertise (yet) ;0) I wouldn’t want to advise you on something that I haven’t tried myself. It sounds like your husband is going to be a huge help — as long as the suspended structure can support the weight of the teapot cake…and the cake base is heavy enough to keep the structure from becoming top heavy, you should be in good shape. If I run across any tutorials that would be of help, I will pass them along. The ones that I’ve seen online are similar to mine in that the suspended decoration is not cake.
I love this idea too as I have been dying to do a supsended cake. I am making an Alice in Wonderland themed Sweet 16 cake for next weekend and think this would give an awesome Wow factor to the cake. However, since I am doing a 3 tiered cake, my top layer being a 6″ cake, do you recommend I make any adjustments to accommodate the smaller cake. Would this work on my 3 tiered cake or do you think the 5 cake circles as the base for this tier is going to make my top tier look silly?
Hi Jackie, I’m glad that you are making this! Just to make sure that I’m understanding, you are making this cake similar to the cake in the video but as a 6″ tier instead, which will be placed on top of your other two tiers? Is that right?
I think that this sounds really cute. Since you are using the 6″ tier, you may want to consider making your teapot smaller. I think that is what I would do…just so that it isn’t heavier or a comparable weight to the tier that it is suspended over.
Hi, I love this cake and am going to attempt it for my mother in laws birthday. My question is: if I make the teapot well in advance and put a pilot hole for the copper wire do you think the fondant on the teapot will Crack when I insert the copper wire? I live in a humid area and want to make sure nothing sags because it is too soft.
Hi Aimee- I’m glad that you are making this! It should be no problem to dry the fondant teapot (with hole) in advance. The only way that a bit of cracking would result is if the copper was too large for the hole that you created. Let us know how it goes! xo
Did you add tylose to all the fondant parts, or just the saucer and handles?
Hi Melissa…….another question. Do you have any recommendations for how to package/prep this cake for transport? It seems as if there is a likelihood the teapot might bounce a bit in the car. I am just starting the teapot, I haven’t started the structure yet. I don’t really have a good idea of how solid the wire is. Thank you for your help. I love mycakeschool!
Hi Lynn! I’m glad that you are making this cake! I’m sorry that I missed your question earlier. Gum paste (or fondant with tylose kneaded into it) is an especially good choice for anything free standing since it has nothing to support it and will need to dry firm and quickly. Little accents like polka dots or piping could be either fondant or gum paste…especially in this case when the decorations won’t be eaten.
I did not have to travel with this cake, I wish I had thought to drive it around a bit to see! The copper wire is strong, I would think that it would be fine for the trip, but just see what you think once it’s assembled. You could always apply the main body of the teapot to the wire once you get there. You won’t have melted chocolate as I did in the video but you could use balls of dampened gum paste as your glue to secure the body of the teapot to the spout. (I just knead a little water into gum paste until it is sticky.)
Lynn, I made a cake like this and I traveled with it about 2 hours. I made the cake and placed it on the structure and added the spout. I traveled with it like that. I then used some gum paste to attach the teapot. Because I knew I was traveling with the cake I made sure that I had lots of tubing to ensure I could push a large amount into the teapot. I also fit the pieces together and made sure they lined up very well before allowing the spout to dry onto the rod. I posted a picture in the gallery awhile back if you would like to see the end result. Good luck!
Yay Aimee! Thanks so much for your helpful input on this!
Melissa and Aimee………. Thank you! I will play it safe and do it like Aimee……. add the teapot on site with some gum paste. Thank you!!!
My first Gravity cake needs work but Im getting there
Oh you did a great job!!
Wonderful, this is great for your first gravity defying cake!! I’m happy that you made the cake!!
Hi Melissa and Bebe, fantastic video as usual…I have a customer that wants a suitcase/airplane theme. So I would like to stack 2 different size suitcases on top of one another( and have an airplane suspended. White fondant “smoke” will be attached to the copper wire to give the illusion of plane taking off. You used a styrofoam ball for your teapot…do you have an idea of what I can use for the plane? I It is due in 3 weeks. Please give me any tips if you can to help make my project a success. Thank you ladies. And HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!
Hello ladies and Hapoy Holidays! I recognize we are in the midst of the holiday season, but is it possible that I can get an answer to my question above? Normally you guys are super fast with responses, but I haven’t heard a word since I wrote you on Dec 15th. It is almost time for me to start working on the cake so I would like to get as much help as possible. If Imyou could respond to me, I would be truly grateful. Thank you so much and I truly appreciate it!
Hi Terri, I’m so sorry- This completely fell off of our radar and so I’m glad that you followed up.
I would model the body of the plane either with straight gum paste, or using rice cereal treats compressed into the shape that you need, covered with fondant. Before it dries, you can create a hole that would be large enough for it to slide onto the wire.
For the wings, I would use gum paste. If the wings are small, you could attach them with bits of gum paste with water kneaded into it to make it tacky…or you can push small floral wire anchors or toothpicks into the wing before it dries, and then after dyring insert it into the body of the plane.
I would keep the plane simple and fairly small- it sounds like a really cute cake!