Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There Birthday Cake

One of my beautiful daughters has always adored the Lewis Carroll books. This is the cake I made for her birthday last week. I didn’t realise the camera had a big smudge on the lens though and it was a bit of a rush, so these are the best photos I managed. The red blob in the above photo in centre back is supposed to be the Red King sleeping, just as he does right through the story. Below, the Red Queen,

 

and Humpty Dumpty.

Did you know the Mad Hatter appears in both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass? It was fun making all the figures. I felt like a little kid playing with play doh!

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Bouquet of Roses Birthday Cake - How I made Flowerpaste Roses

I can now make roses from flowerpaste! It was my birthday on Monday so I told everyone I’d like to make my own cake and we had a family get together. The cake was made up of layers of Coconut Mud cake from the Planet Cake Book and Chocolate Mud Cake, syruped and then covered with dark couverture chocolate ganache. Homemade fondant here.

I thought it would be a good time to experiment again in making flowers out of flowerpaste and not allow my previous endeavours discourage me! Two years ago I’d tried making a couple of roses and they both really sucked so I gave up – my intention was for good. This is one of the roses I made at the time. See what I mean? Crap isn't it?

Anyway, I'm glad I changed my mind.

These videos are by Aine2 from Extra Icing on the Cake, who makes the most beautiful cakes. I used larger cutters than she did in the video – a 75mm (3”) and a 90mm (3 1/2”). The glue she’s using is 1 tsp Tylose (CMC) mixed with some 8 tbl (15ml tbl) warm boiled water and left to set a bit.

Flowerpaste Recipe (recipe from Cakes by Francesca)

500g fondant (sugarpaste) (I used fondant from the supermarket for this)

2 tsp Cream of Tartar

1 tsp Tylose (CMC) or gum traganth

1/3 tsp raw egg white

Copha or Crisco or vegetable fat

Rub copha over board. Knead fondant till pliable. Sprinkle Tylose and Cream of Tartar and knead in. Add egg white into a well in the dough. Mix well. Knead a very small amount (like about 1/16 of tsp) copha into the dough. Immediately wrap in glad wrap and then into a ziplock bag. Take out only enough to use immediately.

Syrup (Planet Cake)

100g Apricot Jam
100ml Hot boiling water
10ml Orange liquer
Mix all ingredients together with whisk.

Ganache

300 ml cream
600 g Dark Chocolate (couverture)

1. Boil cream, take off heat (I use a double boiler).
2. Combine with chopped chocolate and mix until the ganache is smooth.
3. Let to cool completely, best to use it the next day.
4. If ganache is too hard to apply on the cake it can be bought back to its right consistency by heating it in the microwave oven

copyright mandarinelemon 2010

Shoe cake “Reebok freestyle Collette Married to the Mob”

My daughter’s lovely friend just turned 19 so I made her this cake and we gave it to her yesterday.  She has a pair of these limited edition shoes. So this is my first attempt at shoe cake realism!

The cake is layers of chocolate and white mudcake, filled with raspberry syrup and milk chocolate ganache, then covered with milk chocolate ganache, and finally homemade fondant. ‘Michele Foster’s delicious fondant’ recipe can be found on   http://cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-3663-0-Michele-Fosters-Delicious-Fondant.html.  (It tastes eons better than bought fondant).  Everything is edible except for the chain. I had fun making it and great pleasure in surprising her.

copyright mandarinelemon 2010