So this has to do with my little cousin Alex's 9th Birthday. I made her a cake. but it wasn't just your ordinary square cake with candles, no, it had to be something awesome, something she liked.....
That's right. Horses. Of all the things she could have had on a cake, it is horses that she likes the most. This may take some skills....
So first thing first- Stencil. I drew the head of a horse and cut it out since there was no way I could stick a whole horse into a cake in so little time! After all, I was taking it to her that day!
Once that's done, start baking the cake! It's just a Victoria Sponge Cake, since Mum was helping and doesn't seem to realise when I set a recipe in front of her and say "make a cake please" that I meant that recipe for cake...
While that's cooking melt some chocolate and milk together to make a choccy syrup-y goo, and leave it to thicken. And try your hardest to not eat it- it will be used!!!
The cake is still baking by this stage, so instead of twiddling thumbs, get cracking on that cocoa buttercream icing!! just keep adding cocoa powder until it looks like a colour that you like.
Ta Dah! I stuck it on a hard place mat covered in tin foil so it looked a bit neater... cause that worked!
And now to the fun part. And when I say fun, I mean the most important part so don't be Ditzy!!! It's time to cut the cake. Stencils at the ready!!!! I ended up not only cutting the outline, but gauging with the stencil I even managed some 3D jazz for funsies on the body....
But it was all restored once the proper rolled icing was thrown on top of it and cut out, because then I could bring back some of the 3D shape again... YAY!!
And now some real sugary genius/madness, adding the eye and nostril, deepening the ears, and fixing all the mistakes.
Paint time! all I used was Food Bronzing Lustre, and Black food colouring straight onto the icing. The black didn't dry on the eyeball so it looked like it was a proper glazed eye which was such a bonus!
Remember that Chocolate that was melted earlier? yea? well I didn't =P It was meant to be used to draw all the dark, defining lines rather than the black food dye =/, but all was good since I still had some icing left over, so just had to beat it in to that
(I tried it both times and all I can say is adding the chocolate was soooooo much nicer than just the cocoa, it wasn't as so sweet tasting and sickening, so you could totally eat more cake than before).
Now just bung it into a piping bag and get piping a mane.
And Voila! Horse on a platter!
It was safe to say by the look on Alex's face when I surprised her with the cake that she loved it! And while eating it the Choccy choccy Buttercream was in fact, going down a treat!