Miniature Wedding Cake

I entered this miniature wedding cake in the annual Squires Kitchen Exhibition Competition.

There was a lot of trial and error involved with this cake, mainly because of the free standing collar around the cake. I originally wanted it to be constructed from the ribbons used on the top tier of the cake. Because the ribbons were thin there were a lot of weak points in the collar and it broke.

So I had to have a re-think and came up with the idea of having a collar with cut outs of flowers and butterflies. This did work eventually. On the first attempt it became apparent that if the cut outs were too close together the fondant between them was likely to crack and then break.

I made the looped flowers by pushing fondant through a clay gun with a tube shaped attachment on it. I cut the long tube into sections, looped them to form a petal shape and stuck them onto a cut out blossom. I then left them to harden.

I also made some delicate white primroses.

Then I created the design on the top tier. This was done with tiny fondant ribbons in the shape of flower stems and leaves. I measured the circumference of the top tier and then drew out a design on tracing paper cut to the correct size. I pinned the tracing paper to the side of the cake making sure the pins went where the holes would later be covered!

With the paper in place I used a sharp serated roller tool to trace over the design. The tool pierces the paper and leaves an imprint on the fondant. This process needs to be done before the fondant hardens.

I used the clay gun again to create the thin ribbons and the serated roller tool to create the ribbon effect along each edge of the ribbon.

Once all the ribbons were in place I attached the looped flowers and primroses with tiny blobs of royal icing making sure they did not splodge out as judges look at every part of the cake.

I attached the top tier to the bottom tier using royal icing. I then put tiny blossoms around the base of the top tier to neaten the join. All the flowers were finished with a tiny dot of royal icing in their centres.

I attached the cake to the board and made a fondant ribbon to go around the base of the bottom tier to neaten the join.

I made the collar in two halves so that it would be easier to assemble. I placed one half on the board and piped a line of royal icing down each vertical edge. I placed the other half in place and stuck it to the first half. I then piped tiny balls around the base of the collar which formed a decorative edge and held the collar in place.

The cake made it with a seatbelt on around the M25 to Surrey. I received a highly commended grade for this piece and now want to improve on that in future competitions.

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Tags: Competition, Flowers, Minature, Ribbon, Squires, White