Using gelatin for "glass"

I have used gelatin to make butterflies but had not ventured further than that until this past week. So, I thought I would share my experiment with using gelatin as glass. I had two orders one day after another where the design that I came up with were 3-D and required something to make glass. In one, for the window panes in a haunted house and for the second, as the glass in some "spy" eye glasses.

I colored the gelatin for the haunted house window panes a golden yellow and left the ones for the eye glasses clear. I had different thicknesses on my mat where I poured it. The thicker gelatin took longer to dry but had a true hard plastic sheet like feel when dry. I used royal icing to adhere it and found that I had to weight the pieces or the liquid from the royal icing wicked into the gelatin sheet pieces and caused them to buckle.

In any event, the experiment was a success and I was able to create my haunted cookie house with the battery operated LED lights inside to provide an eerie glow and my spy glasses were good enough you could see through them. I had happy customers. Just thought I would share.

I am including pictures of both projects!

Favorite

0 members favorited this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Natasha on January 13, 2012 at 11:56pm

Thanks Janet, I will try this out and let you know the results.....and i might just post a picture.....

Janet M. Hall said:

I have done it both ways by either pouring into a form (like for making butterfly wings, etc.) or drying flat and then cutting it like it was a piece of plastic. You just need to be very aware that even the moisture from royal icing will cause it to curl if you do not dry it under a weight. For instance, when making a window pane you have to have already created and dried two pieces of window frame and then when you add your cut gelatin for the "glass" you need to sandwich it between the two frames and then weight the whole thing until it is dry. Otherwise, the gelatin will warp. That's also how I did the glass in the spy glasses. HTH

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Natasha on January 24, 2012 at 4:11am

Hi Janet,

Just to let you know i've tried the gelatine windows and it came out really well. It actually looks like glass.

But when I used it on the cake (a car), a bubble formed between the cake and the gelatine. I removed it (read:i stressed) as I was pressed for time and tried an alternative.

Having said that- I will definately use the gelatine again - but will not let it rest against the cake but instead use it in spectacles as per your example).

Thank you once again for sharing

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Fatima Pacheco on February 5, 2012 at 4:18am

Hi Debbee. Yesterday I was watching some tutorials on YouTube by The Aubergine Chef and he used melted candies for a glass effect. Maybe you can try it.

Debbee Stone said:

Could I use this to make ice for a beer cooler cake I'm making as a groom's cake for a friend of mine? I have isomalt and it works very well, but it takes so, so much ($10.00 a bag), I was hoping to do a layer of something first then use the isomalt on the top. That way it would have more depth. If anyone has any ideas I'd be open to trying them. Thank you. Your cakes are beautiful!!!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Beth Christine Lastine on February 16, 2012 at 11:11am

Awesome job!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by June Kowalczyk on February 16, 2012 at 11:17am

Thanks Fatima

I just subscribed to The Aubergine Chef on YouTube. He has awesome tutorials!!!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bunny Flowers on February 16, 2012 at 10:13pm

Great thread! So there are things you can do to play around with it before deciding to invest in those expensive butterfly wing sheets and so forth. I plan to try!

Using gelatin for "glass"

Replies to This Discussion

Popular Cake Searches