This is my first "Native American" style cake, made to look like a Peyote drum or waterdrum with an Eagle fan with beaded handle and a beaded gourd rattle on top. These items are used in the "Native American Church" during ceremonies among many tribes. I used my sons personal belongings as models for this cake which was made for his birthday. He liked the cake so much, he wouldn't let anyone eat it for over a week. But it was seen by many of his friends during that time and I thought about making more Native American cakes after that.
Just from experience working in the cake decorating field, there were no so called "Native American" designs or anything to really go by for inspiration at that time. This was around 1995. I was working for a very prominent bakery at the time, and every time someone would come in and ask for a cake with something "Native American" on it, they would always have me do it, since I was the only "Indian" decorator there. Being Indian and living around indians all my life, my children were always participating in traditional ways, I knew that there wasn't anything just "Indian", as far as cake decorating was concerned. With most Indians, those who are traditional, or participate in their tribal ways, so to speak, (I don't mean any disrespect to anyone when I say this) but everyone has their own ways, about how they dress, during dances, religious activities, dinners, feasts, weddings, funerals, celebrations, etc. etc. Alot of tribes have their own designs, colors, styles, clans, bands, whatever, but that is what makes each one unique in their own ways. So whenever someone wanted something "Native", I would always ask what tribe are they, do they dance?, what kind of dancer are they?, do they have their colors, or their designs?, what clan are they? and the other decorators would look at me like I was crazy. But being Native, you don't want to offend anyone by putting the wrong thing on the cake. As with other nationalities, you don't want to offend.
People think, "well why can't you just do some feathers or something like that?", well you could, but then again, it might be offensive to someone if you put owl feathers or hawk feathers on a cake for someone who is in the eagle clan. It could be considered "Bad Medicine".
So you want to know WHO you are making a cake for, and that goes for anyone anyway. The first thing to ask about the cake, is what do you want on it? and then you need to narrow down the details. Details, details, details are the main thing to remember when decorating a cake. If you want to impress someone, don't forget the details, especially the small ones. All those little tiny details, will really impress someone when they're checking out your cake. And believe me, people DO check out the tiny and smallest details.
I always try to do everything free-hand. I use pictures for reference on these types of cakes and I used my knife to help on the ribbonwork design below, because it was so complicated. This is one of the most complicated ribbonwork designs to draw on a cake or to actually sew. This is also one of my early attempts at doing ribbonwork on cakes. You'll see as I go, the different ways I've used the icing for the designs.
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