Dalek Cake Tutorial

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!