cakes

Dalek Cake Tutorial

Published on November 12, 2017November 15, 2017 by Bernice CamlinLeave a comment

Dalek 9” tall to serve 30 portions

Materials

Thin waxed card

9″ or 10″ diameter black cake board (or cover a silver board with black fondant)

1 x 3″ cake tin

1 x 4″ cake tin

2 x 6″ cake tin

1.5 kg white fondant

Black fondant

Ganache

Shortening

Rolkem gold dust

Edible silver paint or silver dust mixed with vodka

Global Sugar Art Sterling Pearl Bronze

Vodka or alcohol based lemon essence

Scalpel

Cocktail sticks

Dark Chocolate Mud Cake

1 x 3” tin, 1 x 4” tin and 2 x 6” tins

375g butter

300g dark chocolate

7g instant coffee powder

2 cups warm water

285g caster sugar

390g Self Raising flour

45g cocoa powder

3 eggs

1.5 tsp vanilla

Make the cakes: 1. Grease and line base and sides of cake tins with one thickness of baking paper..

2. Combine chopped butter, chopped chocolate, coffee, and water in a saucepan.

Stir over low heat until chocolate is melted. Cool 15 minutes. Transfer mixture to bowl of mixer.

3. Add caster sugar to mixture and beat well until dissolved. Add sifted flour and cocoa, lightly beaten eggs and vanilla.

4. Pour mixture into prepared tins.

5. Bake at 150C for 30 mins. Test with skewer. Cakes may take various times as they are different sizes. Cool cakes in tins.

Dark Chocolate Ganache

1.3 kg Nestles Dark Chocolate Melts

450ml pure cream

Make the Ganache: Heat the cream until it just starts to bubble, pour over chocolate (which you have blitzed in the food processor to coffee granules size) and let it sit for about a minute to melt. Use a hand whisk to blend it all together then set aside to cool.

Your ganache at this point will be thin. You will have to pop it in the fridge until it thickens to a slightly thicker peanut butter consistency (don’t cover because you might get condensation). It will usually set in the fridge in about an hour or two. If it sets too hard, just microwave it in 10 second intervals (keep mixing it whenever you take it out).

Make 28 round balls. Once hard, cut in half and paint gold

Print this image as an A4. Cut out all 5 Dalek views and enlarge using a copier.

Use a copier to increase the size of the printed Dalek to a height of 9”, the finished height of the Dalek cake.

Increase the size of the overhead view to 7”. This will be the finished length of the Dalek. I enlarged all views by 254% and that worked a treat.

Trace round the outside of the overhead image and cut out.

Use this template to cut out the cake board from waxed thin card. Similarly cut out a second waxed card to place between the middle and bottom sections.

Black cake board, thin waxed card base and thin waxed card for mid section

Use the 3″ cake for the top section, the 4″ cake for the mid section and the two 6″ cakes for the bottom section.

Bake Cakes. Once cool cut the tops off the 3 largest cakes to make flat. Cut all cakes in half lengthways and fill with ganache

Attach the thin card base to a Lazy Susan (if you have one) with non slip mat or a little Royal Icing to stop it slipping.

Start to build the Dalek holding up the printed Dalek as you go to ensure the shape is perfect.

The mid section stacks on top of the smaller thin card shape.

Cut away what you don’t need and stick cake on where needed using ganache as glue.

Cover all 3 sections in ganache but colour the ganache black for the top section.

Once covered in ganache you can continue to work on the overall shape.

The top section looks best covered in black ganache as you can see the ganache through the cooling fins. I just used regular Americolor food gel and not a chocolate colour.

Once the 3 sections are covered in ganache and dried hard it is time to attach the middle section to the bottom section. Remove the thin piece of card from the middle section before joining with a little soft ganache or soft Royal Icing.

Remove the thin card from the mid section before attaching to the bottom section.

Attach to the bottom section with some soft ganache.

With the bottom two sections together, cover in white fondant.

To help the lustre dust stick to the cake, cover cake in shortening using your (rubber gloved) hands. Only smear on a small amount but make sure the surface is fully covered.

Mix together the two shades of lustre dust and load your brush with a large amount of dust. Apply using a large soft make-up brush like mine that I keep for food use only. Brush horizontally not up and down. Go back over bits you have missed till it all looks good.

Cut each of the rings to make it easier to slip over the top and into position.

Cut out 3 circles of white fondant (I have used a light orange coloured fondant for some details but the result was just the same as using white fondant) each approx 8.5 cm diam. One will be the base for the Upper Turret Section and the other two will be the fins surrounding the cooling vents. Cut out the centres of the fins to the same diameter as the Turret approx 7.45 cm. See image.

Attach the top section and paint the cooling system struts with the mixture of two dusts mixed with vodka

Paint the rings ( cooling fins ) with the dust mixture.

Once the fins are dry and before adding the fondant top piece, paint a ring of glue around the top section where the bottom ring is to be placed and slip the ring over the top and down into position. Glue the ring shut at the back. Repeat with second ring.

Cut a circle of fondant approx. 10.5cm in diameter as a top piece and attach. Neaten edges with a scalpel if necessary. Paint with the mixture of dusts and vodka.

Add gold balls using a small amount of Royal Icing.

Cut out all the platelets using the printed Dalek as a guide to size and numbers. Paint gold and attach once dry.

Make the Antenna, Arm and Exterminator using the enlarged prints as your guide. Use the cocktail sticks painted with edible silver colour and add fondant as required.

Before attaching the Antenna, Arm and Exterminator, add their fixing plates and paint with the dust mixture. Cut out small circles of black fondant for the Arm and Exterminator. Cut out an angled rectangle for the Antenna.

Attach the Antenna, Arm and Exterminator.

Attach Dalek to the black cake board with some Royal Icing.

Make the bumper at the base of the Dalek from black fondant. Measure around the base then roll the fondant into a long sausage of the correct length and flatten with smoothers or rulers to get a squarish shape. Stick on with a little edible glue.

To finish off I went back over all the gold with a second coat of paint.

Voila!

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Lego Wedding Cake

Published on October 5, 2016August 21, 2017 by Bernice Camlin5 Comments

Have you always wanted to know how to make a lego cake? Well I will now reveal all!

This 3 tier ( 5″ / 8″ / 11″ ) square cake will serve 100 dessert portions.
The top two tiers are Gluten Free Orange and Almond filled and covered with white chocolate ganache and the bottom tier is a Moist Chocolate cake filled and covered with dark chocolate ganache. All three tiers are then covered in fondant.
Quantities of Fondant

3 Kg white fondant to cover cake and make some lego bricks
750g red fondant
750g yellow fondant
750g blue fondant
750g green fondant

Materials

3 thin set up boards 5″, 8″ and 11″
17″ or 18″ cake board
Lego builders and chefs + Lego Bride and Groom topper ( purchased online from the UK )
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Recipe for 5″ and 8″ square Orange and Almond cakes
3 – 4 unwaxed oranges
12 eggs
630g caster sugar
1.5 tsp baking powder
630g ground almonds

1. Scrub oranges well and leave them whole. Put them in a large pan with enough water to cover them. Put a small plate on top of the oranges to keep them submerged. Bring to the boil then reduce heat and leave to simmer gently for 1 hour until very soft.

2. Drain oranges well, then put back in the pan and leave until cool enough to handle. Cut in quarters, remove pips, then puree in blender.

3. Use electric mixer to beat eggs, sugar, baking powder and a pinch of salt until pale and creamy. Beat in the almonds and 630g of the orange puree. Leave for 20 mins and preheat oven to 180C. Pour batter into the two pans and check with a skewer that they have the same depth.

4. Bake for 30 mins The cakes will have different baking times as they are different sizes so keep checking every 10 mins or so until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean.

Recipe for 11″ square moist Chocolate cake
175g cocoa powder
21 tbsp boiling water
11 eggs
14 tbsp milk
613g Self raising flour
4 tbsp baking powder
350g soft butter
1050g raw caster sugar

Preheat oven to 180C.
Put cocoa and boiling water in a large bowl and mix to a paste.
Add remaining ingredients and beat till combined. Do not over beat.
Bake for 30 mins. The cake will take a lot longer than 30 mins to bake so keep checking every 10 mins or so until risen and shrinking from side of pan.

Recipe for ganache

Dark chocolate ganache
600ml pure cream
1.7Kg dark chocolate

White chocolate ganache
400ml pure cream
1.5Kg white chocolate

Learn how to make ganache here

Preparing the Lego

I decided to make the Lego the same size as actual Lego but this was a big mistake as it took forever to make all the bits and pieces. You could make the Lego 50% bigger and save lots of time and the cake would still look good. I coloured my fondant to match actual Lego bricks. I used a drinking straw attached to a syringe (with strong glue) to make the little studs and I used a square cutter that was approximately the size of two bricks and then simply used a knife to cut them in half.

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When covering the middle and bottom tiers, I rolled the fondant a little thicker than normal so that the bricks would appear to be ‘under’ the fondant. I cut the fondant half way along the side on all tiers to give a uniform appearance.

The top tier does not have any fondant cut away on the top so make sure you don’t get carried away and treat it like the other two tiers.

Start with the cake board and place the white fondant first leaving the area to be covered in bricks free. Fill in with the bricks and then the studs making sure that you have covered the area plus extra which will be under the bottom tier an inch for a neat look. When the board and the bottom tier were dry I placed the bottom tier right in the middle of the cake board. The middle and top tiers were not placed in the middle as they were placed a little more to the back corner so that there was lots of room at the front for Lego people and for the rolls of fondant. If using a dowel as I did you will need holes in your set up boards and the top two tiers will need their holes off centre so take some time to get those positions correct right at the start. I also used internal pillars to hold the weight of the tiers.

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Roll the fondant up like bandages and attach with some icing using a piping bag.

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Cute VW Kombi Cake Tutorial

Published on February 8, 2015February 8, 2015 by Bernice Camlin1 Comment

This cute Kombi is just 6.5″ long by 3.5″ wide and is a smaller and cuter version of my usual VW Kombi. It is made from dark chocolate mud cake filled and covered with dark chocolate ganache with a layer of sugar-paste on top. This little cake will serve 16 dessert portions.

Materials

9″ round cake board

thin card with a glossy side

white sugar-paste

blue sugar-paste

black sugar-paste

Cut out your set up board from a sheet of thin card with a glossy side. Shape it into a van shape approx. 6″ x 3″. Your board should be a little larger than your cake so that you fill the gap with ganache and use the edge of your set up board to guide your scrapper giving you a smooth finish. Use a non slip mat under your set up board.

Bake a 6″ square Dark Chocolate Mud cake

Ingredients:

220g unsalted butter

180g dark chocolate

4.5g instant coffee

1 cup warm water

170g caster sugar

230g self raising flour

25g cocoa

2 small eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions:

Grease and line base and sides of cake pan with one thickness of baking paper, bringing paper 5cm above side of pan.
Combine chopped butter, chopped chocolate, coffee, and water in a saucepan.
Stir over low heat until chocolate is melted. Cool 15 minutes. Transfer mixture to bowl of mixer.
Add caster sugar to mixture and beat well until dissolved. Add sifted flour and cocoa, lightly beaten eggs and vanilla and mix till combined.
Pour mixture into prepared pan.
Bake at 150C for 1-1 hour 15 mins. Test with skewer. Cool cake in pan.

Make Ganache

For detailed instructions on making and using ganache click here

1 kg dark chocolate
400ml pure cream

Heat the cream until it just starts to bubble, pour over chocolate (which you have blitzed in the food processor to coffee granules size) and let it sit for about a minute to melt. Use a hand whisk to blend it all together then set aside to cool.
Your ganache at this point will be thin and you will have to let it set overnight until it thickens to a slightly thicker peanut butter consistency. Since I don’t have the patience to wait, I just let it cool to room temperature and then pop it in the fridge (don’t cover because you might get condensation). It would usually set in the fridge in under an hour. If it sets too hard, just microwave it in 10 second intervals (keep mixing it whenever you take it out).

Cut your cake in half and stick one half to your set up board with some ganache. Level the top.

Spread with a layer of ganache.

Add the remaining piece of cake on top and shape the roof. Use some of the cut offs to fill in the rounded front of the van and use a sharp knife to create a believable van shape then cover with a thin coat of ganache (crumb coat).

Put the cake in the fridge for around 30 mins to firm up then add more ganache and create the final smooth shape.

Pop the cake back in the fridge or leave overnight on the bench to harden. Cover with white sugar-paste.

Cut out a surf board template and use it to cut out a white sugar-paste surf board.

Cover the cake board with black sugar-paste.

Cut out a template for the blue lower section. I cut out each side separately and then joined them neatly at the back. Cut out the wheel arches using a cutter then use the same cutter to cut out the wheels.

Use black sugar-paste for the windows and white for the roof rack.

To make the VW badge cut out a large circle of blue sugar-paste then cut out the middle and replace with a white sugar=paste circle of the same size. Use a scalpel to cut out the VW detail freehand from a thin piece of blue sugar-paste. Decorate the suf board with cut outs or paint on a design.

Add lights, bumpers and number plates.

Attach the wheels with a blob of Royal icing.

Either place the surf board on top or leaning against one side.

Lace Wedding Cake Tutorial

Published on December 15, 2014March 15, 2018 by Bernice Camlin5 Comments

This fabulous cake took a good many hours to complete but I think it was worth every minute of my time.

Here are the dimensions of the cakes I made…………

4″ round x 3.5″ high:
5″ round x 4.5″ high:
6″ Dummy tier x 3″ high:
8″ round x 4.5″ high.
You could alter these sizes a little with no great consequence.

I would like to show you how to achieve a stunning lace effect on a cake using stencils and piping.
To get the best possible results use a different colour of stencil icing from the colour of your cake.

This cake is champagne and the Icing for the stencil is white.

I used 3 of the set of 4 Designer Stencils.

I will be stencilling the second from top tier of this 4 tiered cake, the tier with the buttons.

As this tier will be stencilled all over I will need to position my stencil vertically and fix in position with pins or tooth picks.
Mix up some white Royal Icing (RI) till it forms soft peaks and apply a thin coat using a bendy scrapper.

I made my scrappers in various widths from square and rectangular Lurpak / margarine tubs.

You can remove the stencil before it dries. You will, however, need to wait till the RI dries before re-attaching the stencil for the next section (5 – 10 mins)
Once you have stencilled the sides of the cake, this tier requires that you stencil on top. Try to align the stencil with the pattern on the sides and complete in segments.
To get the full lace effect on your finished cake you will need to outline all the stencilled flowers and leaves with RI using a piping bag fitted with a small tip ( 00, 0 or 1 ). This is very time consuming but gives a fabulous lacy texture to your cake.

Please also visit my website at http://www.cutesweetthings.com to purchase a cake or just to browse my cake galleries.

Lightning McQueen Cake tutorial

Published on November 16, 2014November 17, 2014 by Bernice CamlinLeave a comment

What fun I had making this little beauty! He is only 10″ long but ever inch is packed with dynamite!

The cake inside is based on a 7″ square Chocolate cake (not a mud cake) with dark chocolate ganache covered in sugar paste.

MATERIALS

A sheet of card with a shiny or wax side for the set up board

A 12″ square cake board

950g red sugar paste

400g black sugar paste

300g yellow sugar paste

a small amount of white sugar paste

a tiny amount of blue sugar paste

Tylose powder

TO MAKE THE 7″ SQUARE CHOCOLATE CAKE

165g soft butter

300g caster sugar

2 tsp vanilla essence

3 eggs

65g SR flour

200g plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

70g cocoa powder

250ml buttermilk

For the ganache

750g of dark chocolate

300ml pure cream

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly grease tin and line the base. Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla with electric beaters until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Transfer to larger bowl and fold in combined flours, bicarbonate of soda and cocoa alternatively with the buttermilk.

2. Spoon into tin and smooth the surface. Bake for between 1hr and 1hr 10 mins. A skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean. Leave the cake in the tin to cool for at least 5 mins before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.

TO MAKE THE GANACHE

Heat the cream until it just starts to bubble, pour over chocolate (which you have blitzed in the food processor to coffee granules size) and let it sit for about a minute to melt. Use a hand whisk to blend it all together then set aside to cool.
Your ganache at this point will be thin. You will have to let it set overnight until it thickens to a slightly thicker peanut butter consistency. Since I don’t have the patience to wait, I just let it cool to room temperature and then pop it in the fridge (don’t cover because you might get condensation). It would usually set in the fridge in about an hour or two. If it sets too hard, just microwave it in 10 second intervals (keep mixing it whenever you take it out).

For full information on making ganache and covering your cake with ganache just check out this page
https://cutesweetthings.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/how-to-make-ganache-and-cover-your-cake-with-it/

SET UP BOARD

Use the plan below to help design the shape of your template. Enlarge the plan by 140% in a copier so that the car measures 10″ in length. Widen the car by adding a strip of paper down the middle of your template so that the car measures 5.5″ in width. This shape makes the best use of your cake pieces and it also looks cute for a young persons birthday ( Flynn was turning 3).

Lightening McQueen plans — Lightning McQueen plans

Use this template to cut out your set up board from a piece of card with the wax/shiny side up.

CARVING THE CAKE

Cut the cake into 3 pieces

7″ x 5″

4.5″ x 2″

2.5″ x 2″

Use a little ganache or Royal Icing to stick the pieces of cake to the set up board. Use ganache to join pieces together.

Enlarge one of the ‘side on’ pictures of Lightning McQueen below till the car measures 10″ long. Cut it our and hold against your cake as you carve to get the correct outline / shape.

As you start to carve the shape of the car, don’t throw out any lumps of cake but instead use them to fill in some empty spaces.

Once you are happy with the shape of your car cover it in a thin layer of ganache (a crumb coat) and place in fridge.

Remove from fridge when hard and with this nice firm base you will be able to add more ganache and smooth it to the required shape.

Use a round cutter to cut out the wheel arches.

Roll out your red sugar paste and cover the car in one go. I used a ball tool to press the sugar paste into the wheel arches.

While the sugar paste is still soft use a skewer or similar to fashion a smiling mouth shape.

Cut out a spoiler template in paper to fit the car and use it to cut out your spoiler from a nice thick piece of red sugar paste (add some CMC or Tylose powder to the sugar paste to help firm it up). This will take some time to harden, maybe even overnight.

Cut out hubcaps and thick wheels using the ‘side on’ picture of Lightening McQueen as a guide the the size. Add Tylose powder to the wheels to help them harden.

Leave the spoiler and wheels to dry out, meanwhile continue with the rest of the car details.

Use the ‘side on’ picture of Lightning McQueen as a guide to make the lightening bolt.

Coloured modelling paste i.e. sugar paste + Tylose powder

Make the two intermediate shades by mixing together some red and yellow.

Using this Rust-eze image as your inspiration, design a badge with the name of your choice.

Use yellow Royal Icing to pipe Flynn on to the badge or cut out some thinly rolled sugar paste.

Cut out the rear window and attach.

Cover your 12″ cake board with black sugar paste and place Lightning McQueen diagonally on top.

Lightening McQueen Cake — Lightning McQueen Cake

Bride and Groom Wedding Cookies Tutorial

Published on August 3, 2014August 3, 2014 by Bernice Camlin2 Comments

Simply the best wedding favours ever. These cute heart shaped Bride and Groom cookies are quite simple to make but can be quite time consuming so please leave yourself some extra time so that you don’t end up with a rushed job!

The recipe below is for 24 heart shaped vanilla iced cookies each 8 centimetres high. The cookies are iced using the ‘Outlining and Flooding’ technique which is simple to learn. The outline works as a dam or wall to hold the runny icing which you use to fill (flood) in the main parts of the cookie.

Vanilla Cookie recipe

200g unsalted soft butter

200g caster sugar

seeds from 2 vanilla pods

1 egg, lightly beaten

400g plain flour

In the mixer with paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugar and vanilla till well mixed and just creamy in texture. Do not overwork or cookies will spread during baking.
Beat in the egg till well combined.
Add the flour and mix on low speed until a dough forms. Cover with cling and place in fridge for at least 1 hour.
Place dough on floured surface and knead briefly.
Roll out to 5mm thick.
Cut out your heart shapes, then, using a palette knife, lay them on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Chill again for about 30 mins.
Preheat oven to 190C/170C fan and bake for 10-13 mins, until golden brown at the edges.
Transfer cookies to a wire rack and allow to cool before decorating.

Royal Icing recipe

270g pure icing sugar, sifted

4 drops acetic acid

1 egg white

Beat icing sugar, acetic acid and egg white with electric beaters on slow to begin then medium for 4 minutes for soft peaks.
Divide the icing between two bowls with airtight lids. Place lids on until required as icing dries out very quickly.
Add white colour and black colour to respective bowls and mix to required depth of colour. I used Americolor gel colour.
Add water (a 1/4 tsp at a time) and stir until you reach the thick or ‘outline’ consistancy. To test the consistency just drag the tip of s knife through the surface of your icing, letting the knife go about one inch deep and count to 10. If the surface of the icing smooths over in approximately 10 seconds then your icing is ready to use. If it takes longer, the icing is too thick. add more water. if your icing surface smooths over in less than 7 seconds, it is too runny. Add more icing sugar.
When your icing is the right consistency ( i.e. smoothing over in 10 seconds) place a quarter of the icing in a piping bag with a small tip number 0 or 1.
Add more water to the remaining icing till it smooths over in 2 – 5 seconds then pour the remaining icing into a squeezy bottle.

5 Bride and Groom 1mb — Thick black and white Royal Icing for ‘outlining’ in bags, thin black and white Royal Icing for ‘flooding’ in squeezy bottles. Cocktail stick for speading the icing and a cup of tea to enjoy. ( N.B. I have 92 chocolate and vanilla cookies here… hopefully you will only have 12 vanilla cookies to pipe).

Outlining

Outline your cookies first and leave at least 15 minutes before you flood the inside of the ‘dam’ (outline). When putting light and dark shades together as we are here (black and white), it is best to wait a few hours in-between so that the colours don’t bleed into each other.

To outline the cookie hold the bag at 45 degrees and position the tip on your cookie. Put enough pressure on the bag so that the icing comes out and you can start moving in the direction that you want your icing to go. Start lifting the piping bag till it is a few centimetres above your cookie and the icing just falls in a continuous line onto the cookie below. Come back closer to the cookie at corners and when finishing also reduce or stop pressure on the bag to go more slowly or to stop.

Using an 'outlne' template. — Cut out a small heart shape template in thin card or paper to help get the correct outline of the dress. The template will also help all the cookies to look identical.

Flooding

Use a squeezy bottle with a large round hole number 3, 4 or 5 tip. Filling one area at a time quickly zig zagging back and forth. Don’t worry if you haven’t filled in every spot: speed is more important at this point. To fill in these little missed bits just use a cocktail stick to push the icing into your missed bits.

Use the thick icing in your piping bag to outline the top of the wedding dress and add a fancy little design. While still wet sprinkle over with white sanding sugar then pipe some dots for a pearl necklace.

Use the same principles for outlining and flooding the ‘Groom’ cookies.

Storing

Let the cookies dry for 24 hours, if you possibly can, before you package them. Store in an airtight container in a cool dry place out of the sun (sunlight can fade your coloured icing, especially black icing). The cookies can be kept for up to 2 weeks and longer if heat sealed in food grade cello bags.

Abbey Monster High Cake Tutorial

Published on May 5, 2014May 5, 2014 by Bernice CamlinLeave a comment

Below are the instructions on how to bake, decorate and hand paint this cute Abbey cake but first…

…welcome to Monster High, the place where children of famous monsters rule the school! Abbey Bominable is 16 years old and the daughter of Yeti! She’s the coolest ghoul in the school and I love her trendy wardrobe and white fur boots. Her BFF is Draculaura and I have a Draculaura cake tutorial that you might like here.

Although Abbey is very pretty she says ‘I am cold in the touching and being touched’

Her favourite sport is Snow Boarding and her pet “shiver’ s an adorable baby Wooly Mammoth.

Instructions

This 7″ Abbey birthday cake is made from dark chocolate mud-cake and filled with dark chocolate ganache.

Materials

10″ cake board

7″ set up board

1.2 kg Ice blue sugar-paste

For cake topper….

Tylose powder

Edible Americolor gel colour in blue, white, pink and lilac

White sugar-paste

Make the 7″ round Dark Chocolate Mud Cake

190g unsalted butter

155g dark chocolate

4g instant coffee

1 cup warm water

145g caster sugar

200g self raising flour

23g cocoa

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Grease and line base and sides of cake pan with one thickness of baking paper, bringing paper 5cm above side of pan.

2. Combine chopped butter, chopped chocolate, coffee, and water in a saucepan. Stir over low heat until chocolate is melted. Cool 15 minutes. Transfer mixture to bowl of mixer.

3. Add caster sugar to mixture and beat well until dissolved. Add sifted flour and cocoa, lightly beaten egg and vanilla.

4. Pour mixture into prepared pan.

5. Bake at 150C for 1 – 1.5 hours . Test with skewer. Cool cake in pan.

Make the Dark Chocolate Ganache

600g dark chocolate, finely chopped

250ml pure cream

Method:

Heat the cream until it just starts to bubble, pour over chocolate (which you have blitzed in the food processor to coffee granules size) and let it sit for about a minute to melt. Use a hand whisk to blend it all together then set aside to cool. Your ganache at this point will be thin. You will have to let it set overnight until it thickens to a slightly thicker peanut butter consistency. Since I don’t have the patience to wait, I just let it cool to room temperature and then pop it in the fridge (don’t cover because you might get condensation). It would usually set in the fridge in about an hour or two. If it sets too hard, just microwave it in 10 second intervals (keep mixing it whenever you take it out).

For more information on how to make ganache and cover your cake with it, please click here.

Assembling the cake

Cut the cake in half and fill with ganache. Attach cake to set up board with edible glue or some Royal Icing. Cover the top and the sides of the cake with ganache and smooth the surfaces. Cover cake and board in one application with Ice blue sugar-paste.

Using the Template Click on the image above and save image. Enlarge or reduce the image to fit your cake. I printed it out to fit a 6.5″ circle just a little smaller than the cake. Print 2 copies so that you can keep one copy intact and the other you can cut up to make smaller templates. 1. Face, ears and neck (cut out in Ice blue sugar-paste). 2. Hair and headband (cut out in white sugar-paste). You may wish to make a little modelling paste in white and some in Ice blue for the Abbey cake topper. This will help the topper dry quichly and make it stronger. Modelling Paste 350g sugar-paste 1 teaspoon Cellogen (if using CMC, Tylose Powder or Gum Trag then use only 0.5 teaspoon) Sprinkle the powder over the sugar-paste and kneed carefully till smooth.

Cut out the face and neck in Ice blue sugarpaste

Cut the hair and headband section from white sugarpaste

The two sections should fit together well

Using a few fine paintbrushes, edible gel colours and a little Vodka as a thinner start painting the hair / headband area as it is simpler and then paint in the facial features last. To help me place the eyes, nose and mouth in the right spots, I used the face template, tracing the outline of the features on the back of the template and then transferring the details onto the Ice blue sugarpaste by tracing over the outlines of the features with the template the right way up on top of the sugarpaste. You can see the fine graphite outline of the lips in the image below.

I have made a video of me painting Abbey’s face and will upload it here shortly.

Painting the face and hair with edible food colour

Add 'Chelsea' to the covered cake board — Add ‘Chelsea’ to the covered cake board

Pirate Ship Cake Tutorial

Published on March 4, 2014March 8, 2014 by Bernice Camlin24 Comments

I made this cake for Slade’s 1st birthday and his Mum didn’t want anything too scary so no skull and cross bones on this cake. It was fun to make the cake and like many of my cakes I didn’t have any idea how it would turn out and just made decisions as to style and colour as I went along.

Some materials you will need

12″ of 7mm diam wooden dowelling for the mast 12″ square cake board 375g pale blue sugar paste to cover cake board 900g brown sugar paste to cover ship

Dark Chocolate Mud Cake Recipe

I used my recipe for a 9″ square cake but I actually used a 8.5″ pan so that the cake was taller than usual. 400g butter 325g dark chocolate 1.5 tblsp coffee granules 2 cups warm water 2.5 cups of Self raising flour 1.5 cups caster sugar 0.5 cups cocoa powder 3 large eggs 1.5 tsp vanilla

Method

1. Grease and line base and sides of cake pan with one thickness of baking paper, bringing paper 5cm above side of pan.

2. Combine chopped butter, chopped chocolate, coffee, and water in a saucepan.

Stir over low heat until chocolate is melted. Cool 15 minutes. Transfer mixture to bowl of mixer.

3. Add caster sugar to mixture and beat well until dissolved. Add sifted flour and cocoa, lightly beaten eggs and vanilla.

4. Pour mixture into prepared pan.

5. Bake at 150C for 1.5-2 hours . Test with skewer. Cool cake in pan.

Make the Dark Chocolate Ganache

although I am asking you to make a lot of ganache, you will need a lot to give the ship its bulging shape and any extra can be frozen till your next cake project.

1.9 kg dark chocolate, finely chopped 600ml pure cream

Method: Heat the cream until it just starts to bubble, pour over chocolate (which you have blitzed in the food processor to coffee granules size) and let it sit for about a minute to melt. Use a hand whisk to blend it all together then set aside to cool.

Your ganache at this point will be thin. You will have to let it set overnight until it thickens to a slightly thicker peanut butter consistency. Since I don’t have the patience to wait, I just let it cool to room temperature and then pop it in the fridge (don’t cover because you might get condensation). It would usually set in the fridge in about an hour or two. If it sets too hard, just microwave it in 10 second intervals (keep mixing it whenever you take it out) till it is easy to work with.

For more information on how to make ganache and cover your cake with it, please click here.

Set up Board

first of all measure out a rectangle 11 x 22 cm then round the corners off to make the ship template which will also be used as the set up board and the edge can be followed when ganaching..

Once you are happy with the shape cut it out.

Building the ship

Cut the cake in half.

Use the template / set up board to cut out the hull shape on both halves of the cake.

Cut dome off top and turn upside down and attach to set up board with some ganache

Now cut in half horizontally and fill with ganache.

Now take the other half of the cake it horizontally into 2 pieces

Take one piece and cut into 3 sections.

Use ganache to attach 2 of these pieces to your ship.

Now take the final piece and cut into 3 pieces.

Use ganache to attach 2 of these pieces to your ship.

Use up all the leftover pieces of cake to create the Pirate Ship shape that pleases you the best.

Cover with a crumb coat of ganache (a thin layer of ganache to seal in all the crumbs).

Place in the fridge till it firms up.

Add ganache to create final shape, making a nice rounded shape.

Leave on bench to harden (overnight if possible)

Sugar paste

Paint a thin layer of water onto your cake board and cover with pale blue sugar paste.

Measure the length and sides of your ship so you know the size of the oval piece of brown sugar paste you will need to cover your ship.

Paint a thin layer of water over the entire ship and cover with the one large piece of sugar paste.

Use smoothers to smooth your sugar paste.

Decoration

Make marks on side of ship to resemble old wooden planks.

I created some stripes in Photoshop and a birthday message for Slade on lightweight card and cut out a small square with the birthday message as the top sail and a larger square as the bottom square. Use a ‘hole punch’ to make holes for the mast.

Create stripes and a birthday message in Photoshop

Roll out some of the left over brown sugar paste into a long thin sausage shape and cut 22 pillars of equal length. use fingers to make each one as cylindrical as possible and stick to ship with a little water, edible glue or egg white.

Cut out some port holes, windows, doors and handrails. Use a piping bag to pipe some pale blue Royal Icing around the windows etc. to add interest. Leave overnight to firm up.

Stick all the remaining bits and bobs to the ship and set sail for the open seas.

Draculaura Monster High Cake Tutorial

Published on January 23, 2014January 24, 2014 by Bernice Camlin4 Comments

Welcome to Monster High, the place where children of famous monsters rule the school! My favorite is Draculaura, Count Dracula’s daughter! She’s the coolest ghoul in the school and I love her trendy wardrobe and her scary cute pets, too.

She is so popular that Amelia decided she would like a Draculaura cake on her birthday!

This 7″ Draculaura birthday cake is made from dark chocolate mud-cake and filled with dark chocolate ganache.

Materials

10″ cake board

7″ set up board

1.2 kg fuchsia sugar-paste

For cake topper….

Tylose powder

Americolor Fuchsia gel colour

Black sugar-paste

White sugar-paste

Light fuchsia sugar-paste

Make the 7″ round Dark Chocolate Mud Cake

190g unsalted butter

155g dark chocolate

4g instant coffee

1 cups warm water

145g caster sugar

200g self raising flour

23g cocoa

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Grease and line base and sides of cake pan with one thickness of baking paper, bringing paper 5cm above side of pan.

2. Combine chopped butter, chopped chocolate, coffee, and water in a saucepan.

Stir over low heat until chocolate is melted. Cool 15 minutes. Transfer mixture to bowl of mixer.

3. Add caster sugar to mixture and beat well until dissolved. Add sifted flour and cocoa, lightly beaten eggs and vanilla.

4. Pour mixture into prepared pan.

5. Bake at 150C for 1 – 1.5 hours . Test with skewer. Cool cake in pan.

Make the Dark Chocolate Ganache

600g dark chocolate, finely chopped

250ml pure cream

For more information on how to make ganache and cover your cake with it, please click here.

Assembling the cake

Cut the cake in half and fill with ganache.

Attach cake to set up board with edible glue or some Royal Icing.

Cover the top and the sides of the cake with ganache and smooth the surfaces.

Cover in fuchsia sugar-paste.

Draculaura character — She loves to splash her black outfits with some cheery pink, and even carries a frilly umbrella so she can take an occasional walk in the sun.

Using the Template

Click on the template above and save image. Enlarge or reduce the image to fit your cake. I printed it out to fit a 6.5″ circle just a little smaller than the cake. Print 2 copies so that you can keep one copy intact and the other you can cut up to make smaller templates.

1. Face, ears and sholders (cut out in white sugar-paste).

2. Hair on top of head (cut out in light fuchsia sugar-paste).

3. Hair bunches at side of head ( cut out in light fuchsia sugar-paste).

4. Earrings (white)

Prepare white and Fuchsia sugar paste and cut out hair, face and earrings. — Prepare white and light fuchsia sugar paste and cut out hair, face and earrings.

You will need to make a little modelling paste in white and some in light fuchsia for the Draculaura cake topper. This will help the topper dry quichly and make it stronger.

Modelling Paste

350g sugar-paste

1 teaspoon Cellogen (if using CMC, Tylose Powder or Gum Trag then use only 0.5 teaspoon)

Sprinkle the powder over the sugar-paste and kneed carefully till smooth.

fit pieces together and allow to dry out a little more

Painting Draculaura cake topper

I used Wilton and Americolor edible gel colours which I thinned with a little Vodka. I was not sure how I was going to achieve a good result but just got stuck in with ‘paint’ and brushes. I was quite pleased with the outcome and I have put together a video of my attempt on YouTube. Unfortunately the camera was not switched on when I was painting the eyes and mouth (the important bits) but the video is still worth watching as i have speeded it up to lessen the boredom and give you a laugh.

: Draculaura can’t see her reflection in a mirror, she has to leave the house not knowing if her clothes and makeup are just right. Of course, after 1,600 years of practice she’s gotten pretty good at it.

Draculaura low angle — Draculaura is a vegan. No icky blood for her, so it’s fruits, vegetables and a lot of iron supplements.

Jawa Cake Tutorial

Published on December 9, 2013March 1, 2015 by Bernice CamlinLeave a comment

This cake does not require any sugar paste which is excellent news for children who dislike sugar paste or the decorator who dislikes using sugar paste. The Chocolate ganache finish is a little rustic but suits our cheeky little Jawa well. There are no real instructions for sculpting this cake as I mostly used my fingers and a small pallette knife. The chocolate ganache behaves a bit like clay and when it gets a bit soft you just pop it in the fridge to firm up again. Ingredients for Chocolate Mud Cake I used 3 round cake pans 5″, 5.5″ and a 6″. The eyes are two yellow sweets (lollies) with a sugar coating.

435g butter
350g dark chocolate
2 tblsp instant coffee powder
2.5 cups warm water
330g caster sugar
360g SR flour
60g cocoa powder
4 eggs
2tsp vanilla

method:

Grease and line base and sides of the bowls with one thickness of baking paper, bringing paper 5cm above side of pan.
Combine chopped butter, chopped chocolate, coffee, and water in a saucepan. Stir over low heat until chocolate is melted. Cool 15 minutes. Transfer mixture to bowl of large mixer.
Add caster sugar to mixture and beat well until dissolved. Add sifted flour and cocoa, lightly beaten eggs and vanilla.
Pour mixture into prepared bowls.
Bake at 150C for 1 hours. Test with skewer. Cool cakes in their pans.

Ingredients for the Ganache to fill and cover Jawa’s head and body (for more information on making and using ganache click here)

1 x 600ml pure cream
1,900g dark chocolate

method:

Place pieces of chocolate in food processor and process till chocolate looks like coffee granules.
Put the cream in a saucepan and bring to boiling point. Pour the cream over the chocolate and mix with a hand whisk until the ganache is smooth. (Do not use an electric whisk, as you will create too many air bubbles in the ganache.)
Allow to cool completely and then leave to set overnight.
Ready for the oven

Proccess the chocolate to the size of coffee granules

To assemble the cake

(Sorry that I have no pictures for this part, I must have been so caught up in my work that I forgot to use my camera!) I cut all 3 cakes through the middle and filled them with ganache. I started with the smallest cake and shaped it roughly into a head shape, covered it in ganache roughly and put it in the fridge to harden a bit. Then I stacked the two largest cakes one on top of the other with the largest at the bottom. I inserted a wooden dowel down through the middle of the cake with a portion left sticking up through with a point on the end so that I could slide the head on. I used ganache to help stick the head to the body. I used the pieces of cut off cake ( I mixed the cake with some ganache to make it easy to mould) to help mould the Jawa shape e.g. his knee and foot but not his arms at this stage. Place in the fridge to firm up again. Cover all exposed areas of cake with a thin layer of ganache (crumb coat) Place in fridge to firm up.

I used this image as inspiration for my cake.

To build up the arms I used a few cocktail sticks and layered the ganache slowly adding to the size and shape while still popping the cake in the fridge to firm up each stage before continuing. I had a few saggy moments but that only made me more careful and determined to make it work. I made the gun in the same way and added it at the very end with the help of 2 toothpicks. I enjoyed mouling the shape with my hands and although it looks like s..t to begin with it soon starts to take shape and creating the hood and sleeves is just magic!