Ruffle tutorial

I have done a lot of ruffles on cakes recently, and it's a really nice detail to add to cakes, especially christening cakes.

Start by rolling a piece of fondant flat... Too thick and it won't ruffle too thin and the ruffles will break easily when they have dried... However the thinner they are the better but you just have to be careful when applying the ruffles and afterwards because fondant dries very quickly!

Cut the fondant into strips, it doesn't matter how thick they are because you will be layering pieces of fondant over each other so the non ruffled part will not show.

I used a wooden stick, and started slowly and gently rolling it from side to side with a little pressure over one edge of the fondant.

You will eventually see the ruffle take place once you have applied a rolling pressure on to the entire strip

Use a little warm water to apply the fondant to more fondant or a buttercream cake. The good thing about using ruffles is that you don't need to cover the cake before you start applying the ruffles ( and we all know how much I hate doing that.)

Depending on what effect you want to achieve, you can start from the top or bottom with the ruffles facing up or down.

Tasmanian Devil Tutorial

This week I've had loads of novelty cakes. I never used to like doing them, but the more I do the more I like them, and the better I get! Here are a few novelty cakes I've done this week: 

Harry Potter themed cake

Frozen themed cake

Minion cake

I was asked to do a Tasmanian devil cake based on a picture of another cake under a picnic blanket eating a sandwich..

 

I started off by baking a couple of 5 inch cakes, layering them and carving the top rounded.

I then crumb coated it and put the cake in the fridge to let it set

I then coloured some fondant dark brown using sugar flair "dark brown" and covered the cake.

I rolled a couple of sausage shapes using the fondant and stuck them on top of the head as hair using warm water

I flattened two rounded pieces of fondant for the ears ...

I used a knife to cut "fur" into the ear and coloured pink fondant as the inside of the ear, I also put pressure to form indentations on the middle of the ear

I used a circle cutter to cut the eyes out 

And using black fondant, I rolled sausage shapes and then flattened them against the sides of the eyes for definition

I then rolled some thick eyebrows out of black fondant.

I made pupils out of black fondant and some cheeks from lighter brown fondant using circular cutters 

I then used cocktail sticks to make whisker spots on the cheeks and a ball of black fondant for the nose

I rolled more sausages of fondant out of light brown fondant for the whiskers

I stuck on the ears and whiskers on with warm water 

I cut a shape of rolled black fondant to fit around the cheeks to make a mouth, and rolled a sausage of red fondant and attached it as a tongue with some warm water... 

I rolled some white fondant balls and fashioned them into teeth shapes

(I had also rolled more brown sausages for more hair and stuck them on behind the ears)

I baked another 7inch cake and crumb coated it with vanilla buttercream

I placed the head ontop of the cake and pushed sticks through both cakes to secure the cakes together 

 

I rolled blue pieces of fondant and cut them into squares to make the picnic blanket .... Cutting them into "folds of fabric" enables it from looking like it's supposed to be wearing clothes!

I stuck polka dots of fondant over the "blanket" as decoration

..and also decided it needed bigger cheeks, so I cut out more brown fondant and stuck them over the original cheeks I had made to make the ale a little more 3D.

To make the hands and feet, I rolled big balls of dark brown fondant and cut three slits into them, before pulling them apart to make simple paws, and placed them on top (hands) and underneath (feet) the picnic blanket.

I then finished the detailing of the cake off with royal icing for the "shine" of the eyes and the nose, green buttercream as "grass" around the cake and finally replaced the sandwiches on the original cake design with a cupcake!

I really enjoyed making this cake. I love doing novelty 3D cakes now from these small 5 inch tins, it allows more detail to go into the cake and there is surprisingly a lot of cake in them (knowing this after cutting Daniella's minion up today!)

L