Batman Cake

As soon as I'd been asked to create a cake based on either Batman or Spider Man for a young lad I knew exactly what I was going to do. 

I went with Batman so I could create a mini silhouette of Gotham City around the edge of the cake and have the Batman Logo on top so it looks like its beaming out from the city below. 

The cake was vanilla with vanilla butter cream and then covered in midnight blue. To create the city I wrapped a piece of grease-proof paper around the cake so it was the exact size and then drew the outline of the buildings on to the paper. Once the drawing was finished I cut it out and laid it on top of black fondant that I had rolled out ready, then it was a case of cutting around the template. After removing the template I made tiny holes in the fondant so they looked like windows and then lifted the black fondant on to ready rolled yellow fondant which was meant to be able to be seen through the holes but didn't quite work so at the very end after placing the city around the cake I piped yellow royal icing into the holes. 

To make the symbol I printed out a picture, cut around it, traced over it with grease-proof and then placed the template on to black fondant cut it out and stuck it on to a yellow fondant disc with a bit of water and positioned on the top of the cake finishing it of with the Happy Birthday message. 

Blackboard Cake

I had been asked to make a birthday cake for a teacher who was going to be celebrating her 50th birthday and they thought it would be funny to include spelling mistakes and bad mathematics. The first thing I thought of was a blackboard cake with Happy Birthday spelt with letters and numbers and to create a sum that equalled 50 but actual equals 15.

The cake is a vanilla sponge with vanilla butter cream and covered in dark brown fondant for the border and black on top. I used red to cover the board and red royal icing to pipe the message onto the blackboard as red is her favourite colour. The chalk and board eraser are made out of fondant.

Butterfly Cake

For the Butterfly Cake I made the butterflies a day before the cake so they had time to harden and keep their shape with the wings stood up. The butterfly colour schemes are from photos of butterflies that I found on the trusty Internet. The main colours I had to work with were any shade of pink. Pink goes well with so many other colours so I knew introducing black, blue and purple would still work well with the main cake colour, cerise. 

For the cake I made two 8" round vanilla sponges, took the tops of both cakes and covered in vanilla butter cream. After rolling out the cerise fondant I marked out an 8" circle in the centre which I then rolled a butterfly print onto. Once on the cake the print sat on top and created a guide as to where to position the pre-made butterflies.

The board was covered in the same cerise fondant and then sprinkled with pink sugar to give it a glittery finish. Once the cake was placed on the board I then positioned the butterflies onto the cake glueing them on with royal icing. 

Roundhead Cake

The Roundhead cake was for a friends dad who loves history and his favourite times are The Tudors, Roundheads and I think The English Civil War. I went with Roundheads as I thought a helmet cake is more manly than a Tudor Rose and I couldn't put together an idea for Civil War. 

To make the helmet I made two 8" round vanilla sponges and cut the top off of the bottom sponge and neatened the top sponge as it had created a curved top when in the oven, which was handy.

The colour is dark grey for the helmet and instead of making a face for it to sit on (which would have been slightly creepy) I went with black so it looked like a mannequin head in a museum. 

For the detailing I printed a picture of the Internet so I could get all the markings in the right place. Once the modelling was finished I dusted some black powder colour around the helmet to age it and then finished with a shimmer powder to give it a metal sheen finish.

The board was covered in Teddy Bear Brown fondant. To create the ripples I rolled the fondant bigger than the board so that it creates natural creases making it look like fabric.