Paris / Horse Jumper Cake

Here is a Sweet 16 cake I did for a young lady who loved show jumping...and who was getting ready to go to Paris. Purple is her favorite color. This cake is a 9", 7" and 5".

The first thing I did was cover the cake drum with white fondant, then use an imprint roller to make the flowery impressions (see below). After it was somewhat dry, I hot-glued the ribbon around the base. This is a grosgrain (ribbed) ribbon; satin ribbons should not be hot-glued or the glue will show through...use double-sided tape with satin ribbon.

I made three different shades of the same color of purple for the buttercream,

for a graduated effect. I wish I had made the middle tier a little lighter. Sigh.

One thing to keep in mind when doing a cake for a customer is to double-check both the day AND the date. I had this cake down in my book for the 25th (a Sunday) and the customer had it down for the day before, on Saturday. So on Saturday, at 4PM, we discovered our error, and the cake needed to be delivered in four hours and it wasn't put together yet! Thankfully the cakes had been baked and cooled that morning, the buttercream had already been made and tinted the three colors, and I knew, in my head, the elements that I wanted to add to the cake.

I got organized very quickly and started with the projects that would take the longest to dry.

That being said, I had originally planned to hand-paint an Eiffel Tower and show jumper but they would not have dried in time. So I went on the computer and found images of both the Eiffel Tower and a show jumper, then printed them out on edible sugar paper.

I cut out the images from the sugar paper, laid them on top of thinly rolled-out gum paste, then cut around with an X-acto knife. I "glued" the images onto the gum paste with a paintbrush that was BARELY wet with water. I let them "set" for about two hours on top of a piece of parchment paper with a tiny bit of cornstarch, just enough to keep them from sticking to the parchment paper. Usually I would let a gum paste item dry overnight. I used gum paste (as opposed to fondant) because gum paste dries quickly and hard and I needed them to stand up independently. 

Above: Once I attached the show jumper edible image to the gum paste, and while the gum paste was still very soft and pliable, I inserted two wires into the underneath side of the horse. You can barely see the wires, above, but you can see one if you look closely at eye level. I then rolled a sizeable chunk of gum paste (underneath the horse) into a rectangle. Using the same-sized wires that I used in the horse, I poked two coordinating holes into the block of gum paste, to match the wires in the horse. I then took the wires out of the block of gum paste. I needed to do this so that after everything dried I could simply insert the horse into the rectangle that it was "jumping" over. (Usually I use strands of dry spaghetti because I like everything on the cake to be edible, but because the horse jumper's gum paste was rolled so thin, the macaroni would have bulged in the back and been unsightly.)

Below:

The "Nancy Batchelor Team," "Joyeux Anniversaire Samantha," and "16" were all done on edible sugar sheets, like the horse jumper and the Eiffel Tower. The flowery image above the "Nancy Batchelor Team," as well as the shapes that "16" and "Joyeux Anniversaire Samantha" are attached to, were made with cutters and molds.

 These two, below, attached directly to the buttercream.

I made the bow, below, out of half fondant / half gum paste, about half an hour before I needed to use it. I rolled it fairly thin, and laid it on top of two dowels to give it a ruffly look, then formed it into a bow. If you want to learn how to make a bow, please email me at: cakesofthehamptons@aol.com and I will be happy to help you. After it was "set," I "glued" the large pearl in place with royal icing, then simply added a little buttercream to the cake drum and placed the ribbons on and then the bow on top of that.

Thankfully I had ready-made flowers in stock; I added them when I got to the delivery site. I added the Eiffel Tower and the horse after I arrived, as well. I learned the hard way never to add a topper until you get to the venue. (I once put a giant lollipop on top of a cake...being top-heavy, it tipped over on the drive to the venue and ripped out part of the cake.)

You can hand-make the flowers or you can buy them pre-made, if you can find beautiful and quality ones online. If you are going to order them pre-made then order them well ahead of time so that you can see if they meet your standards. I have ordered them in the past and usually have not been happy with the quality, but sometimes I get lucky and get some that are gorgeous, like these, below.

Before I left for the delivery, I had the "16" on the cake, the "Joyeux Anniversaire Samantha," and the bow. Once I arrived at the venue, I added the horse jumper and block, the small white flowers, the Eiffel Tower, and the pink roses.

And here you go! A relatively simple, small three-tier buttercream cake!

CHANEL QUILTED CAKE

The cake turned out beautifully ... 

but not without some serious issues along the way!

Here is how I made it, and also how I dealt with some of the problems.

Here we go...

The first thing I did was make the letters (JLH), the flower petals, and the black flower center out of gum paste two days ahead of time so they would have time to dry. You can also make the letters out of fondant at the last minute but I didn't want to handle the black fondant and then try to work closely with white fondant because of the staining the black would cause on my hands.

I always make extra letters (and extra flower petals) in case of last-minute breakage!!

After these dried THOROUGHLY (two days), I used an X-acto knife and CAREFULLY trimmed the fragile edges. You can also clean up the dust by painting them with a little vodka or clear alcohol. Water takes too long to dry, plus it will stain if it drips down the cake.

I made twice as many petals as I needed, in case of any issues: breakage, pulling away from wire, puckering, etc. I dusted all the petals with white pearl dust from Wilton before I assembled them.

The day before I was going to work on the actual cake, I covered the cake drum with fondant and let it dry overnight. I then attached the ribbon at the base. I used hot glue on the cake drum's ribbon since it was a grosgrain (ribbed) ribbon. If it's a satin ribbon, then you have to use double-sided tape and not hot glue or else the glue will show through the satin.

Note: You cannot cover the cake drums too far in advance or the fondant will dry out and start to crack.

I knew the customer wanted a plaque with letters in the middle of the cake, so I chose where the front of my cake would be then used my plaque "cookie cutter" to make a very gentle imprint on the cake. This way I could avoid putting pearls there, which would cause bumps underneath the plaque.

After my cakes were stacked and crumb-coated, I knew what their height would be; at that point I chose the size of the diamond cutter that would work best for both cakes. After the fondant was on, I started at the back of my cake, and at the base of the cake, and worked around, making sure my cutter was straight up and down. When I got around the entire cake and was near the back of the cake again, there was a little too much room in-between where the last diamond imprints would go, so I had to space out the last few.  I then went around the cake again, on top of the other diamonds. When I added the pearls, I added the largest pearls I could find to fill up the larger gaps in the back.

So now comes the first real problem. Once the cake was done, I started to get elephant skin. 

There are a lot of opinions as to why this happens. I find that it happens when I knead it too much after I've added the color. It could be a lot of things: using too much cornstarch, using water, older fondant, dried-out fondant, using too much dust, using vodka or other clear drinking alcohol on it, humidity or lack thereof, thus drying it out...and the list goes on.

Close up of the elephant skin:

Someone told me that if you get elephant skin, you can use a tiny bit of vegetable shortening and massage it and it will come back. While it did improve the wrinkles, it caused another problem, which was even worse...staining!! This did not dry and go away. It dried and stayed!

Close up of the staining:

I didn't address it that second. I added the second cake and hoped the staining would go away.

 It did not!

Next problem...after I placed the top tier on, it looked lopsided! I had to keep turning it this way and that, then I had to keep smoothing the top to get it to look "even." Usually this is not an issue...!

Then the pearls started popping out! Ping! Ping! Bouncing everywhere. I think I counted 11 that popped out. So I made royal icing (another half an hour by the time it was done and then I had to add the color!), and added the pearls, securing them with the now-blue royal icing. (Use a small, dry paintbrush to wipe away excess royal icing that squishes out when you push the pearl in.)

I added the ribbon around the bottom of both cakes, using icing and piping gel to attach to the cake.

After the fondant on both cakes had "set," I dusted the entire cake with white pearl dust, hoping that would help. It helped a little but you could still definitely see the staining! So I added a ribbon over the elephant skin/staining part. It was a little tricky because it was around the top of the cake and not at the bottom. I used a little icing and I also used a little piping gel. I had to reconfigure the ribbon about eight times because it would not lay properly due to the circular edge!

The ribbon at the top of the cake changed the design of the cake, and I wasn't happy about that, but there was no going back at this point. It was crunch time.

NOTE! When buying numbers or letters for the top of cakes, do not get plastic! At the last second, I dropped one of the numbers on the floor and it broke into two pieces!! (Due to strong language, it would not have been appropriate to have children in the area at that moment.) I had to think fast. I used a hot glue gun to gently reattach the number sections. Once it was dry, I VERY GENTLY turned the number over and, using a toothpick, I attached just a tiny bit of hot, melted glue to the back. After it was completely dry, I used a small brush and my black Wilton gel color and "painted" the glue. Whew! Close call. However, I took "back-up" in my "GO" bag...I took black gum paste, a small roller, some cornstarch, and number cutters, JUST IN CASE I needed to cut out a number "30" at the last minute, at the venue! I would have had to add them to the front of the cake, I guess! (paintbrush and vodka to attach)

Since I had to run a dowel down through the middle of the both cakes and secure it into the cake drum, I had to conceal the hole from showing at the top. So I ran the dowel down, OFF-CENTER, filled the hole at the top with a little buttercream to make it level, then made two diamond shapes and secured them to the top. (Note: the reason I doweled the cake off-center is because the hole would have shown in-between the top two diamonds if I had run the dowel in the exact middle. This way the diamond covered up the hole.) I added pearls to the edges of the diamonds. I waited until I reached the venue to place the numbers on top and insert the flower into the cake. If I had it to do over, I would have made those top two diamonds one size larger so I could space the "3" and "0" apart a little more.

The client wanted "sugar crystals" so I brushed piping gel on the cake drum and around the edge of the top cake and added sugar crystals.

Anyway, the final product turned out great, but not without some blood, sweat, and tears!! And the client loved it!

The next day I opened my email to this, which makes every bit of it worthwhile:

"Diane,

Thank you so much for making such a gorgeous cake! It was exactly what I envisioned and was beyond perfect!!!"

Followed up by a second email the next day: 

"It was one of the most beautiful cakes ever and beyond delicious! We've all been discussing how yummy it was, it's almost been completely finished off... And served as my breakfast today! Thank you again for being so amazing!"

To which I say: "I will never work a day in my life because I love every second of this!"