Ideas for a Cake Decorated Like a Hummingbird

An example of how the frosting flower should be positioned in relation to the hummingbird.

Do you know someone or a group in a life crisis or on a new journey? Why not give them a cake decorated with hummingbirds. Whether it be a bar mitzvah (new beginning), celebration of life (spiritual journey) or job change (new career path), this unique cake promises to uplift their spirits. Hummingbirds symbolize peace, love and happiness. A hummingbird represented tireless energy and anxiety to early pagans. American Indians saw it as "the nectar of life." New Age philosophy likens it to self-discovery and healing.

Creating Edible Sugary 2-D Hummingbirds

Wafer cookies are ideal for delicate hummingbird wing construction.

Use a toothpick to outline a simple hummingbird image. Pick two frosting colors for the underbelly -- white works well -- and back. Use wafers, Italian lace cookies or ruffle potato chips for wings. Make an eye with black icing, chocolate chip or raisin, and use a thin pretzel stick for the beak.

Buy a can of sugar-cookie dough and lay out flat. Cut a large circle using a can rim with a smaller inside circle using a pill container top to resemble a crescent moon. Cut zigzags for the tail at one end and a concave wide triangle for the beak and head at other outer end. Cut leaf shapes for the back wings.

Creating Edible Sugary 3-D Hummingbirds

A cake's perimeter is designed with ladyfinger snack cakes.

Use a ladyfinger for the bird's body. Make eyes from raisins or chocolate chips and glue to the ladyfinger with icing. Use thin pretzel sticks for the beak and tail, in a fan shape. Make wings with wafers, lace cookies or chips.

Use a marshmallow peep for the body with a pretzel stick for the beak and fanned pretzel sticks for the tail.

Use a cannoli for the body, and stick thin licorice sticks for the tail into one cream-filled end. Insert a pretzel stick for the beak into other cream-filled end. Stick two chocolate chips for eyes into the cream.

Creating Hummingbird Environment: Branches, Nests, Flowers

An image of miniature leaves and flowers created with frosting.

After choosing a hummingbird design, construct its environment.

For branches, make a crooked line -- using pretzel sticks and black licorice -- running from edge to edge of the cake's surface. Sit the hummingbird on the branch.

Build a nest from either chow mein noodles or melted chocolate chips and coconut. Make a thumb indentation in the nest's center. Fill the nest with tiny jellybeans.

Make a large trumpet-shaped frosting flower and position it near the beak. To decorate the rest of the cake, draw small frosting flowers with leaves and ivy.

Tips and Incidentals

Transport the cake in an over-sized cardboard box.

Avoid multiple trips to the supermarket by gathering all hummingbird ingredients and kitchen tools ahead of time. Be creative; practice making a sample first to perfect the technique for colors, cuts and placement, then apply final design to the cake's surface. Use either a sheet cake or wide surface cake pan to build your bird and outdoor setting design; remember to keep the concept and image simple. If traveling with the cake, protect it by putting it into a large cardboard box.

References

• The Cookie Cutter Shop: Hummingbird Cookie-Cutter Ideas
• How to Draw 200 Animals: How to Draw a Hummingbird
• Enchanted Learing: Candy Bird Nests