I keep intending to take more photos throughout making my cakes, and not just of the finished product. I finally remembered to do it when I made this purple, pink and gold chocolate cake. I probably could have taken some more photos, especially towards the end, but here is an idea of how my cakes get made:
1. Once I have baked, levelled, and iced the cake layers, I set up my workspace with a lightly greased fondant mat, a silicone rolling pin, a fondant smoother, and any other tools I will need. Then I colour my fondant. For this cake I used Americolor fuchsia colouring, and kneaded a small amount of Satin Ice black fondant into half of it to make the purple.
2. I then covered the cake in the purple fondant, used the fondant smoother to create a nice even surface, and trimmed off the excess.
3. Next I lightly brushed the top of the cake with a small amount of water to make it sticky, then I rolled out the fuchsia fondant and placed it on top. Then at the top edge of the cake, I used a small round cookie cutter to create a scalloped border. I mixed up some royal icing and coloured it to match the pink fondant, and then piped around the edges to help stick them down.
4. I continued piping in layers, working my way down to get a lace effect. The trick is to try and keep a steady hand and not to rush, keeping parallel to the bottom of the cake.
5. Once I had finished piping, I used the left over royal icing to stick some edible gold balls around the bottom of the cake.
6. To finish it off, I used uncoloured royal icing to pipe the message on top of the cake, and added a white fondant heart. To make it gold, I mixed gold lustre dust with a small amount of vodka (to make it dry quickly), and used a small brush to paint it on the dried royal icing.
And that's all there is to it! If you order a cake and would like some step by step photos to see how it was made, just let me know.
