The long time promised tutorial for the Thomas the Tank Engine figure is available now! I included the instructions for setting the figure on a cake and finishing it with ties and rails. If you have any questions I am always happy to help, don’t hesitate to ask.
With the big holidays upon us, I decided to offer a seasonal tutorial. I tried my best to make it thorough and well-illustrated. There are numerous photos (over 60) of every step from the roof and chimney construction to the tiny details of Santa’s face.
This tutorial allows great flexibility. It can be turned into a smaller project of decorating a miniature fruitcake, for example. In this case the roof sculpting can be omitted altogether and you can only make the chimney with cheeky Santa inside. Or, if the needs are completely opposite and you need a cake to feed a crowd, then the roof can be made longer, or even steeper, the chimney can be done taller, yet Santa still will fit nicely. Demonstrated on styrofoam chimney and fondant blocks for the roof, the tutorial still covers in great detail how to sculpt the cake and adjust its size to your requirements.
I want to emphasize that if you have any questions or need an advice, I’m always here to help. These questions will be my first priority, I’ll make every effort to answer them in timely manner.
My promised earlier Thomas the Tank Engine tutorial will be available after Christmas, since I think it’s more relevant to share some new cookie recipes and sweet holiday treats with you now.
It was a very short-notice order. A miniature 4-inch cake was intended exclusively for a birthday boy, and two dozen cupcakes decorated with easy Pokemon ball fondant cut-outs were baked for guests. I was lucky the boy’s favorite character was a tiny Piplup and not something like Reshiram, otherwise I wouldn’t have got any sleep at all.
I wish I had taken a shot of Piplup’s rear; it had a very cute behind.
It would have been easier for me to shape the cake as Thomas and be done with it at once, but the parents declined the idea since they were afraid that little Alex could refuse to cut the cake (he loves Thomas that much). I went with the plan B – to make the train from the gum paste as a cake topper for the boy to keep his favorite character. Although, Thomas is 100% edible.
Inside is a chocolate cake, soaked with rum syrup, and filled with dulce de leche buttercream.
For those who is interested, I’m putting together a detailed tutorial “How to make Thomas the Tank Engine”. It should be done within a month, or right after Christmas (in case I manage to produce some holiday-themed tutorial first).
Update: The Thomas the Tank Engine figure tutorial is available now.
This cake is one of my most recent creations, for an adorable little kid who obviously likes the Backyardigans TV series. The name of the birthday boy is five letters long, the exact number of characters, so I thought it would be nice to display it this way.
Inside is a chocolate cake, soaked with kirsch syrup, filled with Dalfour’s black cherry jam and Swiss vanilla-kirsch buttercream.
P.S. I’ve been terribly busy lately, my apologies for delayed e-mail replies. I’ll answer all your questions within a day or two. From now I’m planning to be here more often, no more cake orders till the end of August. I’m going to enjoy the rest of the summer, bake with my son and blog about this, and go camping.
And last, but not least. Thank you very much, everyone, who left kind comments on my previous posts. I appreciate it greatly, thank you.
The cake was a present to my best friend’s daughter who is a big canine lover. Since it’s was a gift I decided to make the cake literary looking like one – a gift box filled with the birthday girl’s favorite chocolates. Besides, Anastasia is a very sweet girl, but incredibly picky eater, so giving her the Lindt truffles was sort of my assurance that she would have at least something for dessert.
Inside was an orange cake, soaked in Grand Marnier syrup, filled with chocolate mousseline. Decor is fondant and gum paste. Non edible were only wire and a piece of skewer holding a dog’s head in place (I usually use spaghetti for this, but it turned out we cooked them all for dinner lately).
Happy Birthday, Anastasia! We love you!
