Creative Crafting

Hi there!!!

So, today began the decoration of our wonderful  celebration cakes. You'll have to apologize for the lack of pictures this time. I was having a blast molding my decorations that I completely forgot to take photos of the steps.

So, my two ideas were: London (I'll elaborate...) and a Frog Prince theme. I chose the latter. Both ideas are really nice, but molding the frog seemed more interesting. I will, however, make a London theme cake at home...at some point...eventually.

The cake itself is a fruit cake we baked a couple of weeks back, and was left to mature in the school fridges with some alcohol. It's a really small cake, approximately 16 cm in diameter. We cut off the dome so we could work with a flat surface, filled the holes from missing fruits with marzipan and proceeded to cover the cake in a marzipan layer. Having done this, we then covered it with regal icing or rolling fondant. Some finished today, some, like me, will finish the cake next week.

The first step we took was making the decorations. Some of my classmates were eager to try out the sugar paste techniques in flower making and went ahead. My idea didn't really require much of this, other than the lily for the lily pad. So I began by coloring my regal icing with green and molding my frog prince. It seemed easier to do than it actually was, but it was fun to see it progress step by step. It looks funny too and nothing like the designs by which it was inspired.  But hey, it looks great on top.

I molded the frog, the eyes and the crown (twice). I set them apart to dry and I cut the cake. After our break, we covered the cake in marzipan. Seeing as I wanted the cake to resemble a pond, I colored my regal icing a teal blue, and the marble effect if provided was perfect.  I covered the cake and smoothed it down. Since the cake is small, we placed it on top of a larger cake round and we also covered this with the fondant. I made this icing a different blue. I then assembled the cake on the cake board and colored some icing in a brownish color. I molded pebbles with it and glued them with royal icing at the base of the small cake.

When the whole "base" was done, I fixed the loose parts on my froggie and placed him on top of the cake. Next to a lily pad and a pile of gray stones, it looked great!!!

Would you kiss him...?

I made a slight mess with the royal icing and breaking a petal off the lily, but everything has a solution and I managed to save it. I could have been done with it, but the Chef agreed the frog was lacking life.  It needs more color to it, more shades, something to give it that spark of life. So the next workshop I will do this and hopefully the finished cake will come out fantastic.

What do you think of it so far? Yes, I know...the frog does look weird.

He'll come to life next week :)

Practice makes perfect and I'll get the hang of molding with the fondant. For now, I'll settle happily for my frog and hope I can turn him into a prince next class.

Until next time!!!

xx