Dalek Cake Tutorial

Dalek

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.

Daleks cut out and ready to enlarge

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

The ganache and tools that I used.

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.

Check height and width

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!

 

 

Dalek cake

 

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Lego Wedding Cake

Lego Wedding Cake

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 )

 

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

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Put cocoa and boiling water in a large bowl and mix to a paste.
3. Add remaining ingredients and beat till combined. Do not over beat.
4. 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.

 

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 middle tier

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.

The top tier

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.

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

 

Ballerina Shoes Cake

Ballet shoes cake

This 9″ Ballerina Shoes birthday cake is made from dark chocolate mud-cake and filled with dark chocolate ganache.

Materials

0.5 metres of 1 metre wide net

Glue gun

14″ cake board

2 x 9″ set up boards

Super Pearl Dust (Sweet Inspirations)

Hot Pink Twinkle dust (Global Sugar Art)

Clay gun

1.2 kg white sugar-paste

300g pink sugar-paste

Quilting mold

silver edible balls

Tylose powder

Make the 9″ round Dark Chocolate Mud Cake

500g unsalted butter

400g dark chocolate

10g (2 tablespoon) instant coffee

2-2/3 cups warm water

380g (2 cup) caster sugar

520g (3 cups) self raising flour

60g (1/2 cup) cocoa

4 eggs

2 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 hour 45 mins. Test with skewer. Cool cake in pan.

Make the Dark Chocolate Ganache

1.2 kg (2lb 10oz) dark chocolate, finely chopped

500ml (17.5 fl oz) 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 in white sugar-paste.

Press a quilting mold to the sides of the cake to make quilting effect or measure and indent with the side of a ruler.

Brush the top and sides of the cake with Super Pearl dust.

Use the other end of a paint brush to make holes for the silver balls and use some edible glue to attach them.

Add any lettering at this stage.

To make edible glue

Add 2 tablespoons of warm water to a quarter teaspoon of Tylose Powder and allow the Tylose powder to melt. Don’t worry if at this stage the glue appears not to be blending. Put a lid on the container and leave it in the refrigerator overnight and in the morning you will have a perfectly clear and ready to use glue.

The glue should be a dripping consistency. If it is too thick, just add a little more water and stir with a toothpick .

The edible glue should be stored in the refrigerator when not in use.

To apply the glue, use a good quality paintbrush and brush on to the area where you are going to be working. Leave until it begins to dry a little so that the area is just tacky to touch.

To make the tutu

Cut the net into 2 strips each 15 cms wide.

Join the strips with pins to make a 2 metre length then machine stitch along one long edge with the largest stitch on your machine.

Pull one of the threads to gather the fabric into the tightest circle possible and sew in place.

Place tutu onto a 14″ cake board and glue down with a glue gun.

Use a  9″ set up board to sit on top and glue this on with a glue gun. Place a 5 kilo bag of flour (or something heavy) on top till set.

Trim your tutu so that it sticks out about 1 cm from the edge of your cake board.

Place your cake (which should be on a matching 9″ set up board) on top using your glue gun or PVA glue to stick it down.

Ballet Shoe template

To make the Ballet Shoes

Print out the shoe template onto thin card so that the sole measures 14 cm in length and cut them out.

Use the templates to cut out 2 soles and two toes in pink sugar-paste and remember as we work through the rest of the instructions that you are aiming to make a left and right shoe.

Use edible glue to attach the uppers to the soles. I turned a little of the edge of the upper under the sole but I think it might have looked better just to join them edge to edge.

Fill the shoes with cotton wool to keep their shape (the cotton wool stuck a little to some glued edges so I would recommend scrunched cling film instead).

Leave shoes overnight to harden.

Next day remove packing and add the stitched band around the top of the shoe by cutting and glueing a narrow strip of pink sugar-paste around the top edge of each shoe and use a cocktail stick to make the little holes.

Making the shoes

Use the clay gun to make the little bows and glue them in place with edible glue.

Dust the shoes inside and out with pink twinkle dust and attach to cake with edible glue. I also used a cocktail stick to anchor the toe of the angled shoe to the cake as the cake was travelling by car to the birthday girl.

Cut out 4 long strips of pink sugar-paste to make the ribbon ties and dust them on both sides before glueing them to the shoes.

Brush more pink dust over the shoes where needed.

Ballet shoes cake topper

Ballet shoes cake bow

Use a ribbon in the same shade as the tutu, around the base of the cake and make a bow for the front.

Ballet shoes cake top

Ballerina Shoes Cake