18th Birthday Drama.

by Kimmy NZ
(New Zealand.)

Party time




My daughter had said she did not want a party for her 18th Birthday. So, being a mean Mummy I threw her one anyway as a surprise. I made the cake over a week, hiding it in my walk-in wardrobe when she was around. Then working like a woman possessed when she was not home. Thank goodness she is a very busy teen.


Drama



My daughter studies drama and loves anything Vintage. I almost went with the country pastel shades but I changed my colours at the last minute and hope it reflected the theatre.


Learning new things



I have lots of ideas and picture of thing I would love to try. Once I had the design idea in my head I went through all the things I wanted to learn. I used a mould – which took me forever to figure out how to get the fondant out of the mould. I have done a little mould work but not a long string of pearls or very detailed shapes. That sorted, how do you get the floppy shape on to the cake? I found that it was best to leave the shape to one side while you made the next. This allowed it to set a little and made it easier to handle. I have never draped fondant and found a great tip on the web after I had fiddled with it for ages and it looked messy. You line up wooden dowels, place the fondant on-top and (I used a soft paint brush) pushed the fondant in between each dowel, giving you perfect pleats. Push out the dowels and gather by hand, placing it on the cake. I also tried out the marbling. Super easy to do and worth the effort. I did notice that brown and ivory gave a lovely realistic stone look for future reference if anyone needs that particular look.


Too much cake!



To do my draped fondant I felt I needed a two tier cake. However, this was only a small gathering and I didn’t need the extra cake. I have looked at the dummy cakes but they are so expensive. Thinking outside the box I thought I would cover a cake tin. The tin has a folded edge which is why you see two rows of pearl. It covers the lip of the tin. My bright idea was to put her gift inside the top tier. Lovely idea – However, if you want to try this, measure the gift first!!


Yet another silly mistake



I wanted to put a tassel on a rope on the cake. Not really rocket science or so I thought! I rolled two colours of fondant and twisted them together. I wanted the back to be flat on the cake so I lay the rope out and chopped it in half. Oops, this was a mistake as it fell apart into its little sections. So, I had to stick every individual section of the rope which took a long time. I moulded the tassel shape with a flat back and rolled teeny tiny bits of fondant to place over the shape. The gold paint was used last to finish the rope off.

Yummy fun



This cake was a lot of fun to make and it was great to learn new skills. My daughter loved her cake and that was the most important. I also found that teens can wade through a chocolate cake at speed. I am not sure anyone really cared what it looked like, just when it was being cut and eaten. Bless their hearts.

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