Next month I have to create a cake similar to a Monopoly Board for a Bat Mitzvah. The young lady made up her own board with different street names, etc. That will be easy to recreate, a square cake with an edible image on top. The difficulty lies with the little pieces, the houses and hotels, and of course the players pieces, the shoe, race car, dog, thimble and now the cat. Have you seen how small those pieces are? I don't like putting non edible things on my cakes so buying a game and using the real pieces was out of the question. Molding them free hand was also out of the question, as I am not good with tiny details, I have fat and clumsy fingers. So a mold of the items would be perfect, put some sugar paste in the mold, pop it out, paint it and you are done. They don't sell Monopoly molds so I have to make it myself. Off to my local craft store.
At the store, there were different types of mold making kits but since I knew I needed a flexible medium that I could peel back and remove larger pieces at the top through sometimes smaller base pieces. So the mold kits that harden to a stone like consistency were out. I was almost ready to give up when I came across the only remaining container of this silicone mold stuff. I snatched it up and with my 50% off coupon, it was only $10. (After making a bunch of molds, I barely used any, so I will save it for future projects.)
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| container of mold maker |
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| Monopoly items with numerous coats of mold builder |
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The container's instructions were a little vague, but I set to work. I laid newspaper down on my surface and put wax paper on top. I got a small paintbrush and the items that I wanted to make molds of. The instructions tell you to do 8-10 thin coats, allowing to dry between coats. I found doing thin coats impossible so I just gobbed it on but I did allow for thorough drying time between coats. You also have to make about a 1 inch rim around the outside of the items allowing you to have something to hold while making your sugar paste item.
I did everything in about 10 layers just to be on the safe side. When dry, I unmolded the item and I had my mold. The stuff does not hurt the original, you couldn't tell that I had done anything to them.
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| the car from Monopoly |
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| mold of the car |
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| the sugar paste car made from the mold |
Once the molds were done, I started to make my sugar paste pieces. I made a small oval of sugar paste smooth and put it into the car mold and then tried to unmold it. No such luck, it got stuck. After I scraped it out, I tried again, this time using some Crisco. I covered the piece of sugar paste thoroughly with Crisco and pushed it into the mold. You really need to push it in well but not to hard or you can end up with a misshapen piece. It is silicone and very flexible but you need to be careful. I waited just a minute or two and popped the piece right out. It looked pretty good as you can see from the picture, you can see the wheels, the indentation for the seat and some other details. Let the pieces dry for a few days before you paint them.
Then it was on to the other pieces in Monopoly. Since my set doesn't have the cat, I don't even know if the new sets are being sold yet, I bought a small plastic cat at the craft store and followed the same process.
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| plastic cat from craft store |
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| cat mold |
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| sugar paste cat from the mold |
As you can see from the finished sugar paste cat, the mold picked up some great details from the plastic cat, such as the tail, fur and little ears. Next it was on to the hotel and houses using the same process.
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| house and hotel and the sugar paste results |
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| house and hotel molds and finished results |
Once you take the sugar paste out of the mold, you may have to do a little shaping. Do it while the sugar paste is still pliable. If you wait until the piece drys, you will have to sand your mistakes.
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| painted sugar paste car |
Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and check our Facebook page and web site in April for the finished cake.
www.pattycakesncookies.com and www.facebook.com/pattycakesandcookies
