The Enchanted Forest Party Cake...

My daughter's 5th birthday party just ended (phew!) and it was fantastic.  As I usually do I made the cake at home - and as usual I was totally over-ambitious and ended up burning the midnight oil for days to get it finished (cue husband rolling eyes as he enters the house to find no housework done and his frazzled, tracksuit pant-wearing wife up to her eyeballs in fondant).

I designed the cake a few months ago and drew endless pictures of how I wanted it to look.  Unfortunately, the hard work is in actually bringing that picture to life, and this cake was really the most challenging one I have ever made.  I'm really glad I did it - I learned so much - but next year, Miss S is having a round Betty Crocker packet-mix cake, pink icing and sprinkles!

Side...

I thought I'd share some pics of the cake from different angles and a few bits of info on how I made it, for anyone who is interested.  

Back...

The cake is my favourite family celebration chocolate cake.  You can find my recipe in the comments of my previous post on Master J's Kiwi party.  The bottom layer was 24cm, the top was 16cm and I used a 35cm cake board.

Other side...

The fondant on the cake board, and the two cake layers was tinted using the same green, but in different strengths so the layers went from dark to light.  The lettering was cut using my gumpaste/ fondant cutters (see this post to see them).  I cut them from gumpaste and then dusted them with white shimmer dust.

Close-up of the tree...

The tree was made from chocolate fondant which I found a little crumbly so I mixed in a bit of Sugarcel into it to increase it's elasticity.  The tree alone took me about two and a half hours, and I was so nervous doing it as I had no idea what I was doing!

The fairies I made after watching this youtube video.  I didn't have a face mould so I had to make the faces by hand - that's why my yellow fairy has a bit of a "meh" look on her face :).

The butterflies were made from gumpaste left to dry in a "v" and were attached to the cake with a tiny bit of royal icing.

All the other decorations were made in fondant and attached to the cake with water, except the little daisies which were made from gumpaste.  To finish it off, I sprayed the whole cake with a light spray of edible shellac.

If you have any questions about this cake, please leave them in the comments below.  I'm sorry that I have not got any good "in progress" photos - I really didn't think the cake would work out, so I didn't take any!

I'll post some other photos from the party in the next few days...

LM x