R2D2 Cake

R2D2 was the most fun I've had making a cake. The Mulberry bag cake and this cake were for the same person and out of the two I would have said R2 would be the most difficult to make because of all the patterns and everything. It just looked like a nightmare waiting to happen but it wasn't. Thankfully :-)

The first thing I did was work out how many layers to do and which tins to use and then it pretty much took shape because R2 looks like a walking pedal bin.



After the cakes cooled I dirty iced them with chocolate butter cream and covered it in white fondant (no colouring, yeah). The legs were made out of rice crispies and chocolate so I could mould them and then covered them in white fondant too. The only problem I had was the legs were taller than the body which is annoying because I measured it beforehand so R2 shrunk. To fix it, I used one of the discarded tops off one of the cakes, covered it in grey fondant so I could make it look like a rock later on and sat the body on top. However I realised later on that R2's face is grey and not white so it kind of looks like he's sat on his head.


Once I had all the fondant smoothed I started adding the blue squares and grey wires and black outlines and in a couple of hours he took shape and this is R2D2 for little Davy.

Mulberry Handbag

The Mulberry Bag cake was probably the hardest cake but also the most satisfying cake I've had to make purely because of the hours and work I put into it.
I made the biggest mistake by not getting enough brown fondant the first time round. When I went back to the store they were sold out of teddy bear brown which is just typical. I think there must have been a rush on teddy cakes that week.
After trawling around all the cake decoration stores I know of, nobody had teddy bear brown so my next step was to take the fondant I did have on the cake off and try to make the colour with colouring gels but because I had to work the fondant so much it just kept splitting every time I put it over the cake.
Then the cake was so soft and moist it started falling at the side. Thankfully I had made a backup cake which had been in the freezer for a couple of days so I ended up using that. Once I carved the defrosted cake it started taking shape.
The next stage was making the fondant look like leopard print which was quite easy and fun. I found the best way to make the effect was to throw some darker brown fondant spots on to partly rolled light brown fondant and then once the fondants covered enough you roll it into the main colour and it sticks and looks like leopard print.




The next difficult step was the handles. I initially wanted them stood up so I mixed some fondant with sugar paste so that it would harden enough to stand up but they just cracked and looked rubbish. Then I tried thick wires covered in fondant but they just flopped so I looked on the Internet for help and another person had had the same problem and ended up placing them down the side of the cake which looked really good. I made two handles with the leopard print fondant and instead of putting them down the side I folded them on top of the bag and it finished the cake off perfect.

The compact mirror was made with white and pink fondant, the rose was made with the rose petal cutters and built up and the lipstick was black, pink and gold fondant.

Wallace And Gromit Cake

I had loads of fun making my Dad's birthday cake. He's a huge fan of Wallace and Gromit, especially Shaun the Sheep (although he is missing from the cake, oops).
The cake is from The Wallace and Gromit Celebration Cakes book, which has some gorgeous cake designs in. It was difficult to pick just one but, with some help from my Dad, we ended up with the Pest Control van.
The van wasn't too bad to create - it's a straight forward shape and I used the cake recipe the book provides which is a madeira cake with melted white chocolate swirled through the mixture.
The cake was covered with blue fondant and I added the markings with the cutting wheel and black edible ink pen (they are so useful).
The figures were so much fun to make, especially the bunnies. I have a soft spot for all things bunny. The white bunny is a cartoon version of Mr Minnie Tinkles, the brown bunny is a cross between a rabbit and a donkey, and the head popping out of the ground is so cute.
Making Wallace was a bit of a hassle - he is meant to be kneeling but I was making the characters out of fondant and not sugarpaste so his legs just squished down everytime I tried to put him together so he is stood up now. I had no problems with Gromit, he was a good boy.
The grass effect was made with a hard bristle brush and looks quite effective.

My dad loved his birthday cake and he can't bring himself to eat any of the figures so they are stood on his computer desk.