Horticulture Event

inspiration:

the real ones, silk floss tree

gardenia thunbergia

 escholia californica

Last Year, one of my family friends Cary Sharp wanted me to make some cupcakes for his Horticulture Event at the Wild Animal Park. They were celebrating employee appreciation and what says appreciation more than cupcakes? So we decided on thirty cupcakes, the first flavor (Cary's favorite) vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting, red velvet with cream cheese frosting, and a spice cupcake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting, which I topped with a baked pumpkin seed dipped in chocolate. Which was so yummy and salty, surprisingly I'm a salty person over sweet! In order to make sure and impress the horticulturists, Cary gave me the name of three flowers that he wanted me to make out of fondant. The first was escholia californica, gardenia thunbergia, and silk floss tree. If those scientific names aren't intimidating enough, these fake fondant flowers were going to be in front of a bunch of flower and plant experts so I wanted to do my best. After perfecting the flowers I wanted to stick with the earthy feel and got a basket and then hot glued real moss in the perfect places to make it appear that it was growing out of the basket. I was really ecstatic with the outcome and even the horticulturist were impressed with how much the fondant flowers looked like the real deal!