Fly like an Eagle..................

Another element to the cake were eagles.  In my original plans, there was to be a gumpaste eagle on the top of the cake with wings outspread, and would have been overlooking the bridal couple (aim high, right?).  Well, needless to say, time got to me, and it didn't get made.  I had also planned to have eagles on the sides of the middle tier.  I was torn between trying to pipe them and use chocolate molds.  Well, after the success of piping the tiny eagles for the military logos, I figured I'd give it a shot hand-piping the bigger eagles.

I looked at the logo's that had eagles on them, and decided I liked the eagle on the US Marine's one the best.  So, I blew up the image on my computer until it was the size that I wanted for the side of the cake.  I then taped the images to a board and covered them with saran (like you would for run-sugar).  I decided on which tips to use (I think 3 or 4, not sure), and piped the eagle over the image.  They came out pretty good:

This is the eagle, before he was painted and dusted.  

I piped ten (10) of them, even though I only needed 5.  I figured this way I would have my pick of the best ones.  Once they were all dry, I painted them with a light brown color, then dry dusted them with Old Gold luster dust.  

They came out fantastic!!!

I didn't paint them with luster dust/vodka mixture because I really don't like how it looks when it dries.  It kind of dries splotchy to me.  This produced a much better looking product, in my opinion!

~Chelle