Cake with a Splash

So... it's been a while.  The joys of looking for a rental, moving and unpacking has delayed my cake-making for a while, but I have started again! Here is my first cake for 2012.  I was asked to make a diver cake for a colleague's husband's 40th, and here it is.

Diver Cake

Cake decorating classes can be quite expensive, so I've been trying to teach myself some new cake decorating techniques from books and cake tv shows.  So I bought myself some moulds of shells and starfish, and learned how surprisingly easy it is to create sea-life.  The blue water is just piping gel spread over the dry fondant.  I still haven't quite got the knack of marbling colours together, so my blue fondant just turned into one colour, but the gel takes care of that.

 

The only figurine that I had made before was a teddy bear, so I was pretty happy with how the diver turned out.  The tip that I got from a book was that with making figurines of people, you start with the head so that the features of the face are in proportion.  Apparently with animals, you start with the body.  The head and body are joined by a toothpick for some extra support (the toothpick nearly poked through the top of his head, but I saved it just in time!)  I probably could have made him a little bigger, but I think that it turned out well overall.  You can't see the little tank on his back in these photos, but it's all joined together.

My next cake-making adventure is two cakes for a joint 21st.  I have asked my friend Vic for some tips about icing the cake to look like a volleyball (she is a cake-making extraordinaire), and I'll be doing a trial-run next week.  Wish me luck!

-N-