I made this cake for my step mum for a special birthday and as a thank you in return for doing me a big favour a while back.
We discussed ideas for the cake and took some inspiration from Google images, then I was left to my own devices to surprise her.
The finished cake has a theme of Mexican day of the dead and of love and friendship.We, as a family have been through some hard and testing times losing people we love, but friendships and family ties support us and enable us to carry carry on, and have hope in the face of adversity.
We wanted the cake to symbolise these things, but also create something over the top that had a gothic girlie over the top kitschy feel.
This was a challenging cake for me to make, as parts of it had crucial timings especially the chocolate components and the rose making ,so had to be on the ball and work quickly. I watched a couple of You Tube tutorials to help master a couple of techniques, to try to get a professional finish.
For the base I baked 2 x 10 inch Madeira cakes with pink and back stripes running through the sponge which gives a zebra print effect when you slice into it. You divide your cake batter into 3 bowls:
Then dollop the cake batter one spoon full at a time one on top of the other and it settles into the cake tin like this..
I levelled the cakes off then filled with strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream which is piped round in a circle on one sponge to create a dam , so the icing doesn't spill out of the sides of the cake.
I then added thick buttercream into the sides of the cake to fill out the edge. Then I scraped a thin layerof buttercream on the whole outside of the cake which was levelled with a scraper to ensure a smooth finish to the purple fondant icing covering it.
I bought 6 kg of white ready roll fondant in total which I dyed with colour gels. It Took ages dyeing blocks of icing with the different colours. Takes a lot of elbow grease!
I rolled the purple fondant out quite thin and draped over the cake and smoothed it all out with a plastic smoother. I trimmed off the excess with a pizza cutter. I stuck 7 straws into the cake to anchor the top tier cake or the weight would just collapse in the bottom one. Just trim the straws once their in.
I then got to work scrolling...with black icing in a pipe bag cut with the teeniest snip on the end.
The consistency has to be not too runny nor too thick, little things like this make or break it...You can imagine it all running down the sides and not setting as you scroll :(..... Practice first on the side of a tin. ;)
The top tier is an 8 inch rich chocolate fudge cake, with an amaretto ganache, covered in black fondant.
It is crucial to let the chocolate cake set in the fridge at this stage for an hour before you ice it.
I covered this cake in black fondant and used my scraper to score some diagonal lines and then stuck pearls in between.
All the roses, leaves and hearts are handmade. The skulls are made from a chocolate mould kit, which I dusted with a silver grey lustre powder. Sadie gave a helping hand dusting these.
The sugar roses are the most time consuming part of the cake, though quite relaxing to sit and make as you get into a rhythm.
The leaves were made with a leaf cutter in different sizes.
I found it best to let the roses and leaves have some drying out time after you make them, to harden off which doesn't take long... approx an hour, or they don't hold their shape when you pin them. If they are too hard they snap as the petals are very thin and fragile, so timing is everything!
The skull for the top of the cake on the top is a plastic one which I painted in white acrylic and coloured in with felts and paints in a Mexican day of dead style. I placed a sugar rose in the eye and circled it with silver balls.
The cake was placed on a 16 inch board which I painted with black acrylic. I used a glue gun to stick the black spotty ribbon on with. I finished off the other tiers with silver ribbon and black.
Next I got to work placing all the roses and leaves on, I placed them throughout to make sure I was happy with the colour and size balances, before securing them to the cake with small splodges of buttercream behind each leaf or flower. Some of the roses had to be pinned on with thin gauge crafting wire and cocktail sticks (Mainly to the sides of the cake) you snip a piece of wire approx 5 inces long bend over to form a prong then insert through the centre of the rose being really careful not to damage any of the petals. I did damage some of them but most of the roses had a pearl in the centre which hid this and looked pretty anyway.
The roses all had a dusting of edible glitter.
The Ta Dah moment....
Angee was really delighted for the reveal which I was really glad about :) We took the cake to the venue and once in situ Angee supplied the black feather which just finished it off perfectly.
Finally how the cake looked when first piece was cut....The funky pattern worked!
I had lots of lovely comments form the guests at the party, and some recipe requests!
Shame to cut it but it's meant to be eaten! :)
