Over the last couple of weeks I have shown you very tasty marshmallow fondant, how to make a fondant wood grain cake board and the final piece of the puzzle is the cake that it was all made for.
A lovely lady that my mum works with, who also happened to do an amazing job setting up the reception for our wedding a couple of years ago, has a gorgeous little boy who had his naming day coming up and L asked if I would be interested in doing the cake.
After seeing the invitation with coloured pencils and a sketch outline on the photo, I suggested making a cake in the shape of a colouring book and L was very happy with the idea. I then thought it would be a great opportunity to use of the wood grain technique on the cake board as it would be like he was sitting on the floor colouring in.
Now, getting the shape on the day didn’t quite go to plan so I present to you my Wannabe Colouring Book Cake.
The flavour of the cake was pretty easy to decide and was chocolate (using the recipe from my Chocolate Cupcakes and Rosewater Buttercream) with a whipped white chocolate ganache, covered in the marshmallow fondant. The only alteration I had to make to the chocolate cake was omit the eggs due to an allergy. So for my egg replacement I used ground chia seeds with water (add 1 tbsp chia seed to 3 tbsp water and let it soak for about 10-15 minutes then use as normal). The cake still rose the same, but it was definitely a lot more delicate, hence why I couldn’t get the shape I was after (I was going for an open book like this one). Since then I have heard of another great egg free chocolate recipe from Inspired by Michelle Cake Designs which I will have to try for the next time.
Once I layered the chocolate cake and ganache together, I covered it with the marshmallow fondant which was ridiculously easy to roll out and came off The Mat so much easier than anything I had used before. Then the cake was attached to the wood grain board.
Given my book now looked more like a ream of paper, I wanted to change how I was going to finish the sides off. As I had a bit of fondant left over, I picked out some of the colours from the edible images I was using on the cake to make little balls to place around the bottom of the cake. Once I coloured the fondant, I used a little trick I learned from making the BBQ Cake which was to use the end of one of my piping tips to cut circles out of the fondant. You might have to experiment with the size of piping tip that you use to make sure you are getting balls the size that you are after (you can see at the bottom left of the below picture I was using the tip of one of my round nozzles but it was a tad too small).
You then roll these discs into little balls and they should all be the same size. Alas, mine were slightly different because I think my fondant was different thickness when rolled out, for the gold colour in particular.
So that you are not rolling 5,000 balls when you only need 120, add up the length of each side of your cake and then work out the size of a ball. Divide the total length by the size of your ball and you will know how many to roll. I then divided the number by four, as I had four colours, and then rolled that many plus a few extra just in case.
I secured the balls to the side of the cake and the cake board by using some sugar glue working on a small section at the time so the glue wouldn’t dry out.
Another first for this cake was using edible images. I knew straight away that there was no way I could achieve the top of the cake freehand, so I used the picture from the invitation for one side of the colouring book, and then whipped up a basic image consisting of Charlie’s name, some brightly coloured stars and the date. To add to the effect, I made the name look like it had been coloured in with pencil.
When it came to ordering the images I knew straight away who to go to as I had heard, and seen, some of the amazing work that Dina from Zahari creates so you should go and check out her Facebook page for some great examples. The images were sent out pretty quickly and were a breeze to work with even when I had to cut them slightly given how the shape of my cake changed.
To tie in with the colouring pencils on the invitation, I purchased some chunky triangle shaped pencils and scattered them across the board and placed one on the cake as if it was used to colour in the name. You definitely could make pencils out of fondant if you choose, but I knew these would get a bit of use.
I was a little worried, given how it didn’t look exactly like a colouring book, but L was very happy and I received a lovely thank you after the day. In addition, mum was telling me that the guests couldn’t believe the cake board wasn’t real wood so I am pretty excited by that!
