Chanel Bag Birthday Cake

Another designer bag cake! I love making girly cakes, especially bags as I do like bags and shoes.

I must admit I was not familiar with this particular Chanel number.

This was the first cake I made in my sparkly new workroom. Actually come to think of it a client who came along for a cake decorating session used it before me.

We moved a few weeks ago and have had quite a lot to do so it has been a bit chaotic although I am pleased to say that my workroom was the first room to be sorted.

There is still lots to do elsewhere but I’m alright Jack.

So I have a new room all to myself which is such a pleasure to work in and I really enjoyed making this cake.

The cake itself is a fruit cake. This type of shape works best in fruit because it is a good sturdy cake which can be used to make a tall narrow structure.

In order to achieve the right bag shape the cake has some internal supports.

These vertical dowels are anchored in the base of the cake and then go up through the centre of the cake.

Because fruit cake is so dense it holds around the supports wheras a sponge cake is more likely to sag around the supports making them less effective.

Ok, before the technical talk sends you right off to sleep I will tell you more about the cake. Having covered the cake with marzipan I had to make a higher lip around the top.

I covered the top of the bag with white sugarpaste and scribed a line along the centre for placing the zip.

I made the zip the same way as in the Louis Vuitton Cake

The real bag has a lip which goes above the top of the cake where the zip is. I made the lip on the cake with marzipan.

Once the marzipan had hardened I could start aplying the sugarpaste. I started with the sugarpaste on the back of the bag as I could cover in two stages.

I tend to start with backs of cakes for cakes that actually have a back that is. The reason for this (any cake decoraters amongst you will probably know what I am about to say) is that for one it usually takes me a few minutes to get into my stride if I am doing a repetative pattern and also if there are any little starting blips they are better off at the back of the cake.

I would add at this point that there were no little blips!

I also had to put sugarpaste on the inside of the lip at the top of the cake.

So I used a diamond shaped embosser to get the criss cross pattern on the cake.

Once that was done I used a litle tool that gives a stitch effect.

I did the same on the inside top of the bag and matched up the stitch lines as much as possible.

With that done I had to make some holes for the handles which I did with small circle cutters.

I made the chanel logo with some fine card which I could then emboss the cake with. I did the embossing before the sugarpaste harderned.

After embossing I could use the same card to cut out the blue sugarpaste logo I needed and put it in place where I had embossed the logo on the cake.

In did this in parts which made it much easier to apply.

I also had to add a corner in dark blue.

Almost done with the handles to make.

The handles on this bag are looped leather ropes. I rolled out tubes of dark blue sugarpaste and put two together to make the first handle - again at the back.

I made the handles in sections as they would be too heavy to make as one continuous length. Once the main section of the handles were stuck in place with edible glue I made the parts that go through the holes in the bag.

Once these were done I could make the little loops between the long part of the handle and the short part that loops through the hole.

After painting edible glaze onto the blue parts of the bag I added the little bit on the zip - the doer upper and that was the bag done.

I was not familiar with this bag when the order was placed and after making it think it is a very stylish little Chanel number.