How to make an edible cake topper

Happy Saturday! I hope that you are all enjoying this Easter long weekend.

Day 3 of  MOVE it, TONE it, DRINK it challenge went very well today. I hit the gym as soon as it opened to MOVE it. aka. Body Pump and 30 minutes on the elliptical.

We had a new Body Pump instructor and she was super hyper and super fantastic! Actually, the class was crazy busy – I counted over 60 people in the class!

I returned home full of energy and straight away launched into some domestic tasks I have been putting off for a while. The garage is now organised enough to fit my car in (yay!) and I also went through loads of boxes of photos – keeping aside the ones I want to put into albums and photo boxes, and throwing out a heap of bad quality ones. I also intended on going through the 10000s of photos I have on my computer, but I lost motivation after sorting the hard copies and will get to the digital ones over the rest of this long weekend.

But, now, didn’t I promise you some details of my Good Friday cake??

When I was asked to bring something for dessert, I decided that I wanted to create something that was simple, yet different to anything I had done before. I also wanted something that was bright and colourful.

I settled on a vanilla layer cake, with maple butter cream frosting. Simple yet sweet.

But the true star of this cake was the bold and bright edible cake topper.

Which was actually quite easy to make, despite appearances. It had to be started the the day before, however…

Want to know the secret?

Ready to roll fondant!!!

Why make your own when you can by it ready made ;)  The wonders of fondant being that when it is fresh, it will be soft and pliable (kinda like play doh) allowing you to shape it any way that you want. It then firms up overnight allowing your creations to hold their shape.

White seemed a little boring, so I coloured the fondant using yellow food colouring…

Kneaded until it was a consistent yellow…

Then rolled out to around 4mm thickness.

Sliced into strips using my trusty pizza cutter…

Then, moving quickly while the fondant was soft…

I folded each strip over to form a loop,

Pressing the ends together. Repeated until I had used all the fondant.

 

Oh, but be warned….

Yellow food colouring may result in coloured fingers!

With all the loops done, I left them on the counter-top over night to dry and become firm. Then, on the morning of our Good Friday lunch, I got to work putting the cake, and the topper, together.

Starting with the cake. Or should I say, two vanilla cakes, with a layer of maple buttercream frosting in between.

Followed by a crumbs layer…

And then finished with a thick layer of the maple buttercream frosting.

As I mentioned before, putting the topper together was actually quite easy, despite appearances.

Step 1:  Place a large spoonful of the buttercream into the middle of the cake.

Step 2: Working in a circle, press 6 of the loops into the buttercream centre, to form the bottom layer of the bow.

Step 3: Place a further spoonful of the buttercream into the centre.

Step 4: Place 4 to 5 loops on top of the others, pressing them into the icing in the centre to ensure they are stable.

 

Step 5: Finish by placing a final loop into the centre of the bow.

 

And voila….

A fancy edible cake topper!

 

I love the height of this topper,

And how it jazzes up an otherwise traditional vanilla cake.

   

 

And given the versatility of the ready to roll fondant…

 

You could adapt it to fit in with any colour scheme!

I told you it was simple :)

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Day 3 – MOVE it, TONE it, DRINK it

• MOVE it – Body Pump 1hr / Elliptical 30 minutes
• TONE it – Push ups 26!
• DRINK it – 1.5 L (better than yesterday but still needs work ;)

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What about you? Do you use fondant often? This was my first time and I must say, I am sold! It was a lot of fun!

Happy Baking :)