I've not updated in a while because I've been working on quite a big project and didn't want to give away anything away to the birthday girl by posting on here! My cousin Lauren has just had her 18th birthday and I said that I would be happy to make her a birthday cake for her party. I had a great idea to do a cake similar to the one my mum made her on her 1st birthday- Spot the dog! Lauren's favourite cake is chocolate so I made 3 10" square chocolate fudge cakes (recipe from Leith's baking bible) to make a 20"x10" 3 layer cake. The layers were sandwiched together with chocolate buttercream, and for the topping I made a sickly sweet chocolate fudge icing-yum! To decorate the sides I used chocolate fingers, which I think look brilliant (and a great way of neatening up messy edges)!
I made Spot by cutting the parts of his body out of cardboard and using these shapes to cut out pieces of marzipan that I had dyed in the correct colours. The great thing about this was that I could make it in advance, so when I came to arrange the shapes on the cake, the marzipan had hardened making it easier to transfer. The lettering was also made out of icing, and I piped around Lauren's name in white royal icing to make it stand out a bit more.
For a finishing touch I added little white chocolate stars which I think made the cake look complete. I was quite happy with the end result considering this is the biggest and most challenging cake I've made yet!
Lauren with her cake :)
The original cake my mum made!
