Green Dragon Birthday Cake

Green Dragon Cake

My son has just turned six, and decided that he wanted a dragon cake. I have made him one before, which had quite a few mishaps before if finally made it to the party, but I thought, hey, I'll give it another go.
 The cake was a lovely moist chocolate fudge cake, sliced and filled with chocolate buttercream, carved into shape, and then crumb coated with the buttercream before adding the fondant icing.

This is the cake after carving and, I am just moulding the fondant on. I found moulding the fondant around the shape of the cake a little challenging, but after smoothing it with my hand for a while, which warms the fondant for easier covering I was happy with the result.

 I coloured white fondant with dark green and yellow paste colourings to get the acid colour green I was after. Paste colourings are much easier to work with than liquid and as they are very concentrated you only require a small amount to get a good solid colour. Liquid colouring tends to make fondant very soft, so if you need a strong colour for your project, I would always recommend gel paste food colourings.

After I was happy with the shape, and had cut the excess fondant off, I started to add the details. I never really had a clear picture in my head of how I wanted the dragon to look, so it was very much a trial and error process until I decided what I liked.

Finished! After all the moulding had been done, I very liberally dusted pearlescent lustre dust all over him to give him a glow. I popped a small indoor sparkler into his mouth which looked  very effective when lit. And most importantly my son loved it.

Topsy Turvy Cake

This cake was a challenge. Again it was a birthday cake for the same friends other daughter, she was not having a party, so I thought I would try a mini topsy turvy cake. Hmm, quite a challenge too, but loads of fun. I love mauve and lime green together, and thought it would great on this style of cake. I had recently bought a fabulous book by Lindy Smith, (Cakes to Inspire and Desire), and she shows you the engineering side of these cakes in the book.


So, with a little trepidation, and some excitement at using my new 4" spring sided, loose bottom cake tins, I made the batter, and again tinted it violet, pink and white, and baked each cake. When done, I cut the crusts off, and tried to cut the cakes so they would sit well on top of each other without too much of a slant. That done, I crumb coated, and covered them with the fondant I had tinted. Again I covered them with cutouts, and made the toppers with gumpaste that I had marbled. This cake was also a surprise, and I wish I had a photo of her face when I walked in with it, she was quite emotional, and didn't want to cut it at all. She was persuaded to by her friends though.

Tool Box Cake

This cake I made for my husband's birthday. The tools were all made out of gumpaste, and painted with edible silver paint. When I started I didn't know where to start as it were, so I got some real tools out of the garage, and just tried to copy them. I was really pleased with them, as they were my first attempt at modelling with gumpaste. The cake itself was a vanilla sponge traybake, which I cut in half and layered with buttercream until I achieved the size I wanted.

I covered a chopping board with marbled fondant to look like a work bench, and just piped onto the board. and placed the tools around sticking them with a little dab of buttercream. Have to say hubby was pretty happy with it.