X-Box Minecraft Cake

Apparently the guests at Noah's gaming party couldn't find the cake! Lol

Although the X-Box One is essentially just a 'black box' this cake certainly had it's challenges. It's amazing how every tiny blemish in the fondant stands out when the surface is flat, black and shiny!

I used edible prints for the very first time on this cake, for the covers of the games cases. They were really easy to use, and very effective.

Progress shots:

Both the controller and the games case are formed from home made Rice Krispy treats.

The X-Box is the cake, vanilla sponge filled with vanilla buttercream, the coated in 2 layers of ganache - the crumb coat...

...and the smooth top coat.

The controller and games case were also covered in ganache to smooth them out and refine the shape, then covered in white fondant. Details were added with fondant. The games case is double sided, two games put together with a cover on each side.

The X-Box is also covered and detailed with white fondant. I used a textured rolling pin to get the diagonal grooved texture of the panels on the top and sides of the box.

Because the X-Box has so few details, I made sure to add as much detail as I could, there's actually more detail on the back of the X-Box One than anywhere else!

After masking the games case (where the covers will go), I airbrushed green colour on.

The X-Box and controller each got a couple of coats of black. Then all the pieces were sprayed with Shell & Shine.

The final details - logo, silver trim and button labels, were added with a paint brush using edible food colour gels and a Click 'n Twist pen.

Adventure Time Cake

A friend of mine's son is really into Adventure Time, so she asked me to make him an Adventure Time themed cake as a surprise for his birthday.

The cake is vanilla sponge (recipe in this post) with vanilla buttercream filling, and covered in blue coloured white chocolate ganache (no fondant covering).

To decorate the cake, I started with a sketch, which I turned into a template. Feel free to use it.

I cut the template out and made sure it fit onto the top of my covered cake (I had to add a little bit to the top right of the design).

Then I cut out all the templates for the different prices of the design. The top one is for the black, the bottom ones for all the other colours.

First I cut the black piece of fondant and lay it on a piece of baking paper, ready to layer on the colours.
I started with the colour that covered the most area - yellow, laying the template over the rolled out fondant, and cut around it with an exact knife. I separated the yellow piece into 3 separate pieces at the weak points, then carefully stuck them onto the black piece with edible glue.

Next came the white - also separated into two pieces to make it easier to move into place.

Once all the colours are added, the completed image is transferred onto the cake.

I used a ribbon cutter to make a sword blade and stuck that around the side of the cake.

Then I prepared a template for the handle of the sword

and cut the letters for the name to go on the sword. I left the letters to harden a bit before I stuck them onto the cake, because both the top and bottom of the letter extend over the edge of the sword and won't be attached to anything.

Finally, I added a yellow skirt to the cake board. I do this by cutting a long ribbon wide enough to cover the board, then gently ease it around the cake, smoothing it onto the board, then cutting off the excess.

Once a red ribbon is added to the edge of the board, the cake is finished!

My friend kindly sent me a photo of the inside of the cake. I coloured the buttercream to perfectly match the colour of the ganache and made the sponge yellow - 'white' cake and buttercream just seemed too boring for an Adventure Time cake!

Happy Birthday Ollie! I hope you had a wonderful day.

Yu-Gi-Oh Cake - Harpie's Pet Dragon

My son is a Yu-Gi-Oh card collector and player, so this year he wanted a Yu-Gi-Oh cake. Featured on the cake is Harpie's Pet Dragon...

...and the Harpie, who controls the dragon.

The Harpie and the Dragon are both created by cutting their shape out of rolled out gum paste and  then painting it with Sugarflair colour paste.

I created the cosmic background by spraying the cake black with my airbrush, leaving white crosses for the large stars and white and grey areas to create the nebulae (the cake was covered with white fondant). Then I sprayed over with yellow, red and blue, mostly filling the white areas (except for the centres of the large stars, which I left white). A bit more spraying with black helped to soften and blend the colours in. Finally, I 'splatter painted' Americolor white onto the surface to create all the tiny stars. I absolutely LOVE how this turned out. So much better than I dreamed I could do, especially considering I was just making it up as I went! I tried to convince my son to let me leave it just like that, but he really wanted those Yu-Gi-Oh characters!

Some wire in the head and neck of the dragon allowed me to give the dragon a bit more dimension.

This cake was so hard to photograph! With all that black and the curvature of the cake, it is so hard to capture what the cake really looked like.

My favourite part of the cosmos ended up on the front of the cake - almost completely covered by the dragon, but this side doesn't look bad either.

Happy Birthday!!

Slaying the dragon.

The bottom cake was a 8" dark chocolate sponge with chocolate buttercream, the top cake was a 6" vanilla pound cake with vanilla buttercream, both were covered with milk/plain chocolate ganache.

Graffiti & Gum Balls

I had a last minute cake to make for one of my son's friends today. The whole thing, from baking to decorating and delivering had to be done within 9 hours, so the cake needed to be kept quite simple. There was no particular theme, but I know the young man likes chewing gum, so I got the idea to fill the top of the cake with gum balls, but then wasn't sure what to do with the rest of the cake.

I had a chat with my friend, hoping that bouncing ideas off of her would either help me find inspiration, or that she would come up with something brilliant. Well, I think we ended up with a combination of both, I'm not sure who actually said the word first, but we finally settled on the idea of  putting GRAFFITI around the sides of the cake.

I got an airbrush for Christmas (well, an early Christmas present... that I bought for myself), so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to play with it a bit. I've only used it for simple stencilling and solid colouring so far!

I have to admit, I felt really nervous sitting in front of this blank white 'canvas'. I sat staring at it for quite a while before I finally took a deep breath, pulled back on the trigger and started laying down colour. I'm not 100% happy with the result, but I don't think it's too bad for a first try?

I made my favourite dark chocolate sponge for this cake - i'ts my reliable go to cake. I can mix it up in minutes and it comes out moist and delicious every time. It is my most requested cake flavour by far.

I filled the cake with soft, fluffy chocolate icing, damming the edges with chocolate ganache.

I didn't make quite enough ganache to properly finish the cake, and didn't have time to wait for the new batch to cool to the right spreading consistency, so I dumped it all out on my cool granite work surface and just spread it out to cool quickly. It worked like a charm! Instead of waiting 3-4 hours, my ganache was ready in about 10 minutes!

Happy Birthday Walter!!