Train Driver Cake Topper
This is the cake topper I’ve made for my boyfriend’s dad’s 60th birthday party. He loves trains so the cake is going to have a railway theme (I have a model steam engine drying as I type!). This is the first model person I’ve ever made and I’m pretty proud of him, although he does only bear passing resemblance to the birthday boy! I used Sainsburys own ready-to-roll icing and Dr Oetker Coloured Regal-Ice plus additional pastes as follows: Paprika/Flesh – head and hands Liquorice – hair (tiny amount) Navy – jacket and hat (used in addition to pre-coloured blue) His trousers and tie used the pre-coloured icing. His legs…
Making Sugarpaste Bows
Tonight I made an icing bow to use on the christening cake I’m making for my assessment. Although the instructions are easy to follow it’s actually quite tricky to get the bow to look perfect (particularly with acrylic nails!). 1. Roll the icing out thinly. Mine is coloured with Wilton Rose Red and has some Sugarcell mixed in so that it will dry solid. 2. Using a ribbon cutter (or a knife) cut a strip of icing at the desired with – should be just over twice as long as you’d like the bow to be. 3. Now cut the strip of ribbon in half vertically. Dab the inside of…
The Power of the Crimp
Last night’s cake decorating lesson was all about sugarpaste. We covered boards and polystyrene dummies with a layer of sugarpaste and also learnt about embossing and crimping. The picture shows my crimping practice on a test dummy. I’m still a beginner with the crimper but here are some tips that helped me improve: 1. There’s no need to push the crimper right into the sugarpaste, a milimetre or two is enough. 2. Hold the crimper as shown in the picture. Gently squeeze the crimpers together slightly – squeezing too hard makes the indent stick out and look silly and untidy. 3. Move the cake so the section you are crimping…
A Sugarpaste Rose by Any Other Name…
I recently bought some FMM Petal Rose Cutters from partyanimalonline.com and couldn’t resist testing them out. First I mixed some Gum Tragacanth with sugarpaste to make flower paste and then coloured it with Sugarflair Pink paste. I made a small cone for the centre of the flower and stuck it onto the end of a cocktail stick and set it to one side. Next I rolled the sugarpaste to roughly 2mm thickness and cut out one shape each with the 65mm, 75mm and 90mm cutters. Taking the 65mm cutout, I scored the lines between the petals to make sure they were fully cut out. I then placed it onto a firm foam…
Topiary Cupcakes
These cute cupcakes use a chocolate cupcake and buttercream recipe from Juliet Sear’s Cake Decorating Bible. They are baked in silicone flower pot muffin cases from Lakeland. Using Holly Green coloring I tinted the buttercream and applied it to the top of the cupcake using a palette knife, creating small peaks to create a grassy effect. The bushes are made from vanilla cake pops (made using the Lakeland cake pop tin with icing applied in the same way. I coloured a small amount of the buttercream pink and used a piping bag and a #13 nozzle to pipe small blossoms onto the cake to complete. (Not shown).
Christmas Cake Design
I’m currently enrolled in ABC Level 1 Cake Decorating at Trafford College. This is my first assessment piece – a Christmas cake. The assessed elements of the cake are: Coating – the ‘cake’ is actually a polystyrene dummy coated with three layers of royal icing. The top has to be done and dried before the sides and then opposite sides must be covered and dried before covering the final two sides. The layer must then be dry before repeating this for the next layer – a long process! The icing must be even, without hesitation marks and have no air bubbles. Shells – piped in blue around the base of…