Duck Hunting Groom's Cake

This Duck Hunting Groom's Cake is one of my favorites - perfect for the outdoorsman or duck hunter in your life. This was a groom's cake but it would also be a fantastic birthday cake!

This Duck Hunting Cake design was inspired by the amazing Duck Hunting Cakes from Jaime at The Cake Barn.

This cake was a collaborative effort put together by me and my friend (and assistant) Susan. I could not be prouder of the cakes we delivered that weekend. And there were actually four cakes that weekend... two wedding cakes and two groom's cakes. This is the first I've posted of any of them!

Susan came up that weekend because the wedding cake that went along with this groom's cake required a truck-load of piping. And I do mean a truck-load. It was a 4 tiered cake with words covering every square inch.

With my always-achy hands, I knew that piping would be torture for me and Susan kindly offered to come stay the weekend and help me. Ya'll... best.decision.ever.

PSA: If you have a friend who can and will help you when you need it, don't be too proud to accept the help.

So anyway... let me tell you about the different parts of the cake.

Duck Hunting Groom's Cake

First up, the topper. I shaped the duck out of rice cereal treats then covered it in modeling chocolate. I don't know much about ducks, but the bride gave me some pictures of the type of ducks her groom hunted.

With those photos on hand, Susan hand-painted the duck using these amazing edible paints. PS - if you want edible paint - get this kind. It's nothing short of fantastic.

I wanted every detail of the cake to be edible, if possible. Wafer paper is one of my favorite mediums for cake decorating (remember the flowers I made?), so I decided to make the grass from wafer paper. I cut strips, painted them different shades of green with a little gold and brown, and let them dry. Wafer paper naturally curls when damp so the effect was really nice.

Then I sandwiched two together with a spaghetti noodle in between (using piping gel for glue) and used the noodle as the "stem" to stick into the cake..

The Top Tier

The reeds were also made with uncooked spaghetti noodles and brown fondant on top. I added the grass & reeds behind the duck and also on the side. The little sign, "The Hunt is Over" was fondant and the rocks were these jelly beans.

The top tier was just textured cream cheese buttercream - using this buttercream comb. It was colored brown with gel coloring - it was not chocolate. Tricky, huh? 🙂

The Middle Tier

The middle tier was a little more involved. I covered the tier in white buttercream, then went back and did a watercolor effect on it. I added patches of yellow and light orange buttercream, then smoothed them to get a sunset (or sunrise) sky. When I was happy with the look, I popped it in the freezer.

After it was really set, I used a small paintbrush and black gel coloring to paint on the silouhettes. The buttercream thawed pretty quickly so I had to work fast. When it was all put together, I piped the grass around the bottom of that tier using this tip.

The Bottom Tier

The bottom tier was a lot of fun. I first covered it in more of the brown cream cheese buttercream. Then I used chocolate curls (not sure what else to call them) to make the bark.

To get that look, I spread melted chocolate on wax paper, Then I rolled it up and froze it. After severeal minutes, I unrolled it and the chocolate broke into curved pieces perfect for bark! Isn't that fun?! I stuck those to the buttercream and easily got the look of tree bark.

Lastly, the board was covered in green fondant, then I piped more grass and added some fondant shotgun shells. I purchased a fondant mold for the shotgun shells here on Etsy. I used Satin Ice red fondant to make them.

When they were dry/hardened, I painted the ends gold. To get the gold, I mixed Imperial Luster Dust and lemon extract. That combination gives the best gold in my opinion.

The Reception

So - I think that's all the cake details. Now let me show you a couple of pictures from the reception.

The cake was displayed on a huge wooden spool and no detail was spared for the decorations!

Isn't that gorgeous?! There was camo and stumps and greenery and ducks and it was all just so woodsy and manly! Perfect in my opinion!

The Duck Hunting Groom's Cake was 6", 8" and 10" tiers of red velvet cake. I baked them in my favorite Magic Line pans and filled frosted them all with this cream cheese buttercream.

Did I miss any details? Do you have any questions? Leave me a comment!

Happy Caking!

Rose

Looking for other duck cake ideas?

Check out some of my other duck cakes here:

Details of this Duck Hunting Cake here.

Duck Hunting Groom's Cake

And then there was this Dead Duck Cake. It caused quite a stir on Facebook, but you know... the groom was a duck hunter and he wanted something unique 😉

And last, there's this Duck Call Groom's Cake. Click here to read all the details!