We have had a mild winter here in the northeast. We would get 3 feet of snow and then it would be 60 degrees and it would all melt.
For the celebration of a mom's birthday, her daughter requested snowflakes and crystals. This is an 8" white cake with fresh strawberry compote.
A few days prior to the pickup, I cut snowflakes from fondant using Marvelous Molds Snowflake molds. When they had crusted over, I painted them with gum glue and sprinkled them with clear crystals.
Crystals can be made by mixing gum arabic with warm water and pouring the mixture onto a silicon mat or a very clean cookie sheet. I use a cookie sheet that is only used for this process. I then dry this in the oven overnight and the next morning I can flake the mixture and run it through my fingers to make it as small a flake as I would like. Store it in a container in a dry place. If you desire, you may add color to the water. I use more clear than any other, so I keep a large bottle made for the ready.
The cake is covered in pale blue buttercream and piped with a shell border. Before adding the buttercream to the bag, I painted a strip of food color in the bag so that I would have a pale blue edge to the shell.
Sugarveil snow was added to the base of the cake and randomly around the top along with silver dragees in the curl of the shells.
