Sweet "little Earths"

Dear Readers,

There's a new trend in wedding cakes for 2016, with geode inclusions made from rock candy!

The word geode means "rounded stone with a hollow center lined with crystals" from the Greek geodes, meaning "earth like." So geodes are often affectionately called "little earths."

Geode Wedding Cake - Intricate Icings

People have been making these for a while, though putting them on wedding cakes is a fairly new (and gorgeous) trend.

I tend to make them around Easter and include them as part of the baskets I sell; I try and make my baskets almost non-denominational and more nature inspired in order to have a wider appeal.

There are a few different ways to make sugar geodes.

The first is extremely time consuming, though I'd argue makes the most authentic looking geodes. It involves growing rock candy crystals in a concentrated sugar solution.  The biggest problem with this method is that it can be unreliable and not grow as many crystals as you might need for a cake.

However, the crystals that do grow are both gorgeous and realistic.

White Chocolate and rock candy geodes - my own

A much easier way to make rock candy geodes is to simply break up hard candy (like lollipops) and glue them into a candy shell with a touch of royal icing.

In my opinion, geodes made this way don't look as realistic, but the advantage is it's much quicker and you never have to worry about running out of them in the middle of decorating a cake.

I like to keep a small amount of hard candy on hand, just in case my crystals don't form properly.

Whatever method of geode formation you choose, rest easy in the knowledge that people will love them.  Though don't allow people to get too precious with them, these geodes are meant to be eaten and enjoyed.

Here is a simple tutorial so you can make your own geodes at home.  Rock Candy Geodes

Remember that you can color and flavor your geodes in any way you like and there is no way you can possible mess it up or have something go wrong.  Geodes exist in nature, and nature isn't perfect, so be sure to embrace your perfect imperfections.  :)

Have fun with this project and good luck!

Stay Sweet!

xo
Lisa