Our gorgeous girl is 7 (wow, that came up fast!), so of course she gets a birthday cake!
She was asked what she wanted as a birthday cake and reeled off a massive list of random things.
Thought about how to turn this list into a coherent cake design, and just got myself confused really, but luckily my lovely cakey inclined friend Sophia helped me navigate the fog in my head.
The finished cake shows the amazing Mrs Dee surrounded by some of her favourite things.
First thing to make was her comforter, which she has always called her "moo-moo", but is actually a giraffe. I made this quite big because moo-moo and her other comforters (which now number 4) have always been very important to her.
I modelled the legs and set them on top of some pink flowerpaste folded to look like part of the skirt. I modelled the torso and put it on top with a central skewer support.
Meanwhile, the head for the figure was hardening up.
I used a silicon brush to model the nose and mouth, and a small ball tool to add the dimples at the sides.
Sugar figure making has not come easily to me (I think you can see this from how chunky the legs look) and I find it really frustrating if I'm honest, but I'm starting to get better at it. I've found two books invaluable in this recently.
The details in the Molly and Jasmine book are fantastic and the figures are amazing, although the translation is shocking and the figures themselves are a bit... um... like overly sexualised kids. The Carlos Lischetti book is great, the instructions are easy to follow and it has a really useful section on how to proportion your figures.
Meanwhile, I made a little book, which I painted and set aside to dry.
I put a semi-circle of flowerpaste over the legs to finish the shirt and added a sash, with a bow at the back to cover the seams.
I used a silicon brush to indent the eyes, then immediately wished I hadn't as I made them too big and couldn't get the dents out properly so now she looks like she has bags under her eyes. I painted a little white, then brown iris', a tiny black disk for her pupils, a dot of white for highlight and a tiny sausage of flowerpaste over the top for lashes.
I cut a disk of hair coloured fondant, placed it on the head and textured it with a cocktail stick.
I added some capped sleeves, arms and put the book in her hands.
I stuck some pins under the arms to help them stay in position while the glue was drying. I didn't want to use wired supports that stay inside on this figure as I knew that there were going to be small kids around.
Stupidly, I managed to snap the book (doh!) so you can see where I've quickly had to add an extra bit of purple fondant to the back to fix it.
I started to stick textured pieces of fondant hair on to create movement.
Then I started to add curls.
Mrs Dee was really happy with her cake, which was by the way a 3 layer, dark choc, red velvet, and banana chocolate cake with dark choc buttercream, white choc buttercream and vege raspberry jelly layer.
As you can see she eagerly placed the candles herself and was adamant that she would be eating her moo-moo first!
You can also see that there was an impressive number of kiddy fingerprints in the cake almost as soon as the lid came off the box!
Darling girl,
we love you so, so much.
We are so glad to have you in our lives and we are ALWAYS here for you.
xxxx K&S xxxx
