My sister goes to a fundraiser for high school sports every year. Held at a local golf course, the alumni of two local schools play a round of golf, then eat dinner and have a silent auction. She called and thought it would be a great place to advertise cakes. The obvious would be a golf themed cake and we might as well go big…
Large cake with cereal treat golf bag on the side
We decided to make a large tiered round cake. Somehow put argyle on it with golfing details and I wanted to try a golf bag. Have to put my thinking cap on for this one.
I usually make a drawing of the proposed cake using Adobe Illustrator on my computer. I can get down what’s in my head and be able to size patterns… like the diamonds on the argyle.
I borrowed my dad’s golf bag and took photos of everything I could think of. Zippers, clubs, tees, pencils, balls, straps on the bag, like I said, everything.
I figured I’d better bake the cakes first so I could figure out how big to make the golf bag. My drawing showed one thing, but I like to double check size in reality. I’d use tan and brown with silver accents. I could poke dowels down the center for the cereal treat clubs. Add pockets, strap and towel.
I’m still using store-bought fondant and this was going to take a lot. We colored the fondant green, blue and tan. I decided to go with a chocolate modeling clay for the leather trim on the golf bag. I’d use white frosting for the stitching on the argyle pattern, tinted green for the grass.
Gum paste was used for the tees, pencil, rings and flag, as well as the golf balls. I wanted all these made ahead so they could just be set in place at the venue. I made sure there were extras of all these items… just in case.
The game card was a problem. I had newly purchased a printer that uses edible ink. That way, when I had something with so much small detail I would be able to print it on edible paper and get all the detail needed. Problem was, when I tried it, the edible paper got stuck in the printer and then nothing worked! I ended up having to just use paper over a gum paste card. Better luck next time (I was able to contact the place I bought the printer from and they sent a replacement).
Pink roses and button detail on tall, small cake.
I had a thought that I should show some other cakes, so I quickly made a small cake and figured I could display photos of other cakes in the wire photo holders I made to stick in the top. Since the golf cake wasn’t delicate I made roses for this one.
The day before event…First I put together the small cake and set it in a cool room for later. I was now ready to tackle the golf cake. My sister came to help with the fondant, as this was a first for a cake this big.
Covering and stacking the cakes went pretty quickly. I wanted to make a hole in the top cake and decided to just cut it out and then line it with dark brown fondant. I would set the golf ball on the edge of the eighteenth hole. I used edible marker to write an 18 on the flag.
Next we worked on the base. This was going to be a pretty heavy cake, so I cut a piece of plywood for the base.  I wanted to get the golf bag to appear to lean on the cake. Hum… I ended up drilling a hole in the wooden base and sticking a dowel in it. We then brushed the board with piping gel and spread crushed rice cereal over it for sand. To finish the edges of the board, I “glued” brown ribbon around the edges.
Cutting the diamonds to a pattern, made form my drawing, proved to be pretty accurate. I only had to stretch a couple of them to fit evenly around. Finishing touches would be done in the morning.
Close-up of bag pockets and zipper on golf bag.
Argyle detail on lower tier with grass trim.
I formed the golf bag from cereal treats with pocket shapes on the sides. After covered in the tan fondant it looked about the right proportions for a bag. I had made the chocolate modeling clay the day before and now warmed it up in my hands to roll out and cover the pockets and make the strap for the bag. Trying to make the strap look like it had movement took some time and I still wasn’t sure if it would hold up. I used a tool to make the pockets look like they were stitched on the bag. Along the strap edges too.
The details would wait for the next day. As long as the cake survived the night…which is always a worry for me. I honestly don’t know what I think will happen, but I’m always relieved to see the cake still there in the morning.
We start with setting the cake on the prepared board and I figure I’ll get the piping over with early. First, the white stitching on the argyle. Measuring and centering the points of these diamonds took more time than the actual piping did. But I like the way it looks… Yea! Onward to the trim. Long grass is called a rough in golf, so I figured I’d pipe a grassy edge around both tiers.
The work on the bag meant making a zipper. We colored the fondant grey and cut a skinny strip. How to make it look like a zipper? Looking through my assorted tools I found a wavy tool. Running that down the middle of the strip looked pretty zipper-like to me! I added a silver dust to the rings, buckle and zipper for more realism. We needed a towel to hang on the bag along with a knitted sock for over the “wood”. And what is a sock without a pom-pom?!
Talk about realism… as the chocolate modeling clay dried the trim on the bag looked more and more like leather. Especially on the stitching lines. I could not have planned it better! I’ll have to remember that for another time.
Top view of golfing cake for silent auction.
We had trouble getting the golf bag to stay so the extra golf ball came in handy to prop underneath and stabilize the bag. The only real problem we found was that the strap on the bag kept stretching and breaking. Propping it on the cake helped some, but I knew that wouldn’t withstand the drive so I packed it with the other details. We’d set it up later.
After adding the roses to the small cake and taking photos of both cakes we headed out to the golf course armed with extras, frosting and “glue”.
Not really sure how we pulled this off. We thought it was a very impressive cake and we hoped for a good bid to bring in some money for the sports department.
We then each went home to rest after that fast and hectic week of figuring out a 3-D cake. Lots of lessons learned!
