The second baby shower cake was a total design departure from the first one. It was made to match the invitation and I think I got pretty darn close to the picture. Made of chocolate cake with coconut cream filling (did I mention that the filling recipe made WAY more than I thought because I put in more whipping cream than it called for?) it was a very tasty cake that was made to serve 30. The little purse was actually banana cake because of a long and involved story that I won't go into here.
I started with the shoe pattern for the sole and the heel since they had to be made of gumpaste almost a week ahead. Cutting the Styrofoam with an old serrated knife to make the form was a total pain. Little beads of foam everywhere on my porch! And my clothes! And the house! Actually, I need to go thrift store shopping and find a small and really high heel. I was trying to get the curve of the sole right using one of my shoes and that totally didn't work. I wear a size 10 wide and don't own any heels higher than 2 1/2 inches. So I'm thinking if I get a tiny little heeled shoe and take the thing apart I'll have a decent pattern for the curve, the slender heel, and the upper leather. We'll see the next time I need to make a shoe cake.
With the gumpaste structural parts dried and ready (including the purse handle and little clasps) I was ready to make the cake. I started with the shoe, making and attaching an insole with little stitching marks, attaching the heel, making a paper pattern for the upper leather, covering the black gumpaste with white dots, and attaching it all with royal icing. I've never messed with royal icing and that stuff is great! The super glue of icings! I'm ready to tackle a gingerbread house now.
After the shoe I covered the cake with black Duff fondant (coloring my own black is icky) and making all those teeny polka dots on the side. I was attaching them with a dab of water and thinking, "I didn't charge enough for this cake..." Ah well. It was for a good friend and at least my supplies and ingredients were covered. I put a doily of white with flower cutouts on the top, then tackled the purse.
I had actually started the purse earlier by cutting the banana cake my husband made in a loaf pan into thirds, stacking it with buttercream, and freezing it. Then I carved off enough to make a purse shape, ran dowels through it to hold the layers together, frosted it with more buttercream, and freezing it again. Then I rolled out white fondant and cut stripes of black and hot pink, attaching them with water then rolling it all gently to make it very flat and connected together. I gently lifted the stripes and wrapped them around the purse, cutting the sides at angles to make the stripes line up. Two more gumpaste rolls along the top for the frame, royal icing to glue in the handle and clasp, and we're there! A couple of short dowels in the bottom to make it stay on the cake helped.
I had the baby's name on the purse, glued down the shoe and the purse, and attached a little flower and bow to both as decoration. At this point my husband suggested little contrasting dots in the tiny flowers around the doily topper, and we spent another 45 minutes cutting out teeny circles and using tweezers to attach them to the right place. It was gorgeous but a lot of work, and I'm glad the mom loved it.
Speaking of moms, my own mom deserves a shout out here. She works at an antique store and found the glass cake plate that I've used under the last two cakes. It is 14 inches across and fits a 12 inch cake just perfectly with the decorative edge showing under that. She came across this plate and thought of me immediately and I really appreciate that. Of course, it's her fault that I now own four cake plates, but that's OK!
Posts
