Teapot Cake

What are weekends for other than making random shaped cakes for absolutely no reason? I got some hemisphere cake pans from Lakeland for Christmas and hadn’t managed to try them out yet, I looked up a recipe for the pans on their website (a basic sponge) and set to work. The cake recipe has to be quite dense for the finished cake to hold its shape although I did read somewhere that you can use ganache for the crumb coating as it will set more solidly and make the construction sturdier. For this one I used vanilla buttercream as the sponge was solid enough.

At this point I hadn’t actually decided what the finished cake was going to be. What ultimately swung my decision was the silicone cameo mould that had come free with a cake decorating magazine and I’d also not had chance to use yet. I thought a blue porcelain teapot with a cameo would be quite sweet. Plus, I’m a massive tea monster so this design is pretty close to my heart!

The cameo was not easy, particularly not in two colours and working with plain sugarpaste! To disguise the join once attached to the cake I piped small bulbs around them (there’s a cameo on each side).

To me, this didn’t look anywhere near decorated enough which gave me the chance to try something else I’d been wanting to do for a while: brush embroidery.

Brush embroidery is the technique of piping a design outline and using a brush to pull the icing from the outline into the design adding detail and depth. I used a template from Cake Craft and Decoration magazine traced onto grease proof paper and then punched onto the cake with a scribing tool. It was so easy to do and looks really pretty although I used a no.2 nozzle which might be too thick for really fine designs – I really struggle to pipe with a no.1 though, my icing is never quite the right consistency.

One thing I did learn is if you need sugarpaste extensions (e.g. a handle and a spout) make them a couple of days before as they will not dry in time! I had a much more ornate handle drying in a bath of icing sugar for two days after the cake was done and it still broke – hence this more subdued version which is a remnant of the original piece!

Instead of using a ribbon I added a strip of white sugarpaste to give a table cloth effect that hides the join between the cake and the board.

Teapots are very on trend at the moment and fit in with the whole shabby chic theme so it’s a good design for a female birthday or celebration cake.