A Block of a Cake

This cake was a particularly fun bake! In all honesty, there was only one stressful moment, but that was right at the end and thankfully solved itself (more on that later).

The Project: A Block of a Cake
The Theme: Minecraft
Ingredients:
For the Cake
24oz Margarine
24oz Sugar
24oz Self Raising Flour
12 Eggs
Cocoa
Green Food Colouring
For the Icing
Chocolate Butter Icing
Green Butter Icing
Green Royal Icing
For the Toppers
Teal Fimo
Black Fimo
Pink Fimo
Red Fimo
White Fimo
Brown Fimo
Blue Fimo
Grey Fimo
Light Blue Fimo
Skin Colour Fimo (I'm not completely sure of it's proper name)
Edible Glue

I started this cake quite a few days in advance by creating the figures. Although I could have made them out of icing, I liked the idea of making them out of fimo, the recipient then gets the option of keeping them forever if they want to.
I kicked things off by making the Creeper, it seemed the easiest to start with as he is made up of a series of squares and rectangles, although I cannot help thinking that his mouth looks like a moustache...

After Creeper, the rest flowed pretty happily. I have some trouble with Steve and his stupid pickaxe though. When fimo is in the oven, it goes soft before it hardens and sets into place - Nightmare for the pickaxe handle - it wanted to curve to one side. I found a solution though :)

Now that I had my toppers ready to go, the rest of the cake was fairly straight forward. I baked three layers of the cake, the two bottom tiers were chocolate and the top tier was coloured green (thank you Gavin for the creative idea). The theory being that when cutting into the cake, it still looks like the grass block.

The sides then needed to be covered in a darker chocolate butter icing to fill in the holes and to give the desired effect of the side of the cake. It was a little tricky getting it smooth though

With the sides all good to go, the green royal icing could be placed on the top of the cake. The sides were cut in wiggly lines to give the impression of grass growing around the edges of the block. This green icing is what will form the shape of the piped grass going on top of it.

Piping was the hardest part, I finally purchased some piping stuff, only all that our local shop had was a slightly cheaper version of a piping cylinder that looked like something that my Mum used to use. As hers served her well over the years, I thought that I would pick it up and give it a try (seeing as they also had no piping bags in the shop either!). It lasted for one side of the cake and broke. I had to use a small sandwich bag with a screw on nozzle to finish the rest of the cake. Lesson learned. 

 Finally I placed the figures and secured them with edible glue and piped some more green around them. This is where I started to get worried about Steve, although he stayed in place, I was worried that he would topple over and mark the cake. Luckily, he stayed in place - what a good little Steve!

I got to see pictures of the 10 year old Birthday Boy upon receiving this cake, he looked really pleased with it - makes all the effort worth while :)

Total Time Spent: 6 Hours
Useful Tips Gained: Smoothers work like a charm on butter icing
Items to Purchase: New piping bag or cylinder. 
Items Added to Amazon Wishlist: Piping set and also some alphabet cutters
Miscellaneous Items Wished For: More piping nozzles for different effects 

A Cake fit for a Princess

I had very specific design specifications for this order - pink, pink,pink and more pink! It also needed to be two tiered, which comes with potential dangers in itself! I had a fair few nights prior to making it where I had dreams about it not working out. Thankfully I was fretting over nothing :)

The Project: A Cake fit for a Princess
The Themes: Princess Hello Kitty and a lot of Pink
Ingredients:
For the Cake:
28oz Self Raising Flour
28oz Margerine
28oz Sugar
14 Eggs
Rose (Dark Pink) Food Colouring Paste
Pink Food Colouring Paste
For the Icing:
2 1/2 packs of Royal Icing
Butter Icing
Rose Food Colouring Paste
Pink Food Colouring Paste
Black Food Colouring Paste
Yellow Food Colouring Paste

Armed with the knowledge that the 7 year old recipient is a huge fan of pink, I made the sponges themselves pink so that you have a lovely pink surprise when cutting into the cake. I knew that I would not be able to get the pinks exact so I made one half of the top tier and one half of the bottom tier dark pink and the top half of each tier, light pink, with a pink butter icing for the middle. 

Once baked, cooled and butter iced, I made the holes for where the supports need to go, so that it holds both tiers in place.

In order to gain a smooth finish around the sides, I then crumb coated the edges with a butter icing and cake crumb mix. I had to to this a few hours before covering the cake, if the cake crumb mix was not set, I would not achieve the finish that I was looking for. I did this for both tiers.

Happy that the crumb coating was set, I was able to cover the bottom tier of the cake, keeping an eye on the two holes that I had made for the supports to go. Round cakes are so much easier to cover than square ones :)

After covering the bottom tier in the lighter pink, I covered the top tier in the darker pink, again, getting that lovely smooth finish that I was aiming for

Once covered, decoration was able to begin. The request had been stripes on the bottom tier and spots on the top tier. Starting with the dark pink for the stripes, I measured and spaced 8 stripes around the bottom tier.

Once happy with the spacing, I stuck them down and tidied the ends up. then I could put the supports into place, ready for the top tier.

I placed the top tier on top of the bottom tier, ensuring that the supports were in the right place. I did not situate the top tier in the middle, as I wanted to have more of a step at the front of the cake, so I had to measure it exactly to ensure that it sat exactly where I wanted it to. When it was in place, I cut out two different sized circles from the lighter pink icing and secured them to the top of the cake.

I cut out a number 7 from the light pink icing and attached it to the top tier at the front of the cake. My original plan for the bottom of the cake was to pipe around it. However, I decided to go with twisting the two different colours together (ensuring that the twists are as even as possible all the way around). I really like the sweet flump effect that it gives and I think it fits perfectly for this cake

Next came the Hello Kitty part, I cut out the shape of her face out of white icing and used yellow for the nose, black for the eyes and whiskers and the dark pink for the bow. The whiskers were actually the hardest part, making sure that they were long enough to look like whiskers but did not drop at the edges was a real balance! Surprisingly I only had one moment where I wanted to punch Hello Kitty, but thankfully I persevered and got her right in the end. Because she was placed on a stripe, I also created a backing for her with the stripe cut out so that the stripe did not create a bump in her face.

All that was left was to add a tiara to the top and there we have it, a Princess Hello Kitty Cake

I was really pleased with the results. This was also one of the occasions where I got to see the recipient's reaction when she first saw the cake, a 7 year old who loves pink, Hello Kitty and Princesses, her big smile seemed to suggest that it ticked all the boxes :)

Total Time Spent: 8 Hours
Useful Tips Gained: Measuring gives you good results!
Items to Purchase: I need to replace by piping bag, although I decided to go in a different direction for this cake, who knows what I'll need for the next one
Items Added to Amazon Wishlist: None this time
Miscellaneous Items Wished For: Round Angel Food Tin, for no real reason than I want to make one someday.