"I Did it My Way!"

I love Frank Sinatra. I'm jealous of the guy that got this cake.

Very simple design - chocolate fudge cake with chocolate buttercream decorated with a "stage" and my handmade sugarpaste Sinatra and mic. I used my italic letter Tap-it's for the writing, which are now pretty much broken to death. Square and circular cutters were used for the music notes and the checkerboard stage. I won't dwell much on the cake this time. I was really happy with the figure I made, as the only real experience I'd had with sugarpaste figures before this was Fireman Sam and the skiing guy.

The way I make figures is in sections, using Flowerpaste which sets a lot harder and quicker thatn sugarpaste. I roll an oblong piece of paste together, then cut a slit about 75% of the way down for the legs, then I make a torso, and then finally a head and arms. I always skewer the torso to the legs with a small piece of dowel, and insert florists wire into the arms and head to keep them in place, too. I use edible glue to stick on the hands and any facial details. The mic has a long piece of florists wire going through it, so it stays upright.  I used PME Finishing spray over the entire cake and figures to complete the design.

Icing on the Top:

• The execution of this cake is flawless, in my opinion. Everything is perfectly in order, with the letters spaced out evenly. Using such a contrast with black and white icing I expected a few more difficulties with colour smudges, etc. however this was a pretty clean-cut cake for me :)
• Frank is so cute. I just wanna eat him. And you can! (Once you remove the wire and dowel, of course!)
• I had a lovely message from the recipient a few days later saying how good the cake tasted. I love hearing that best of all. At the end of the day, a cake can look fabulous but you're still gonna eat it so you want it to taste as good as it looks!!

Burnt Bits:

• This picture was taken before I delivered the cake, and unfortunately I made the huge mistake of travelling in a car by myself with a very precariously-balanced handmade figure on top of a delicate cake. He fell over a few times, and I found myself having to turn back home and picking up a small dowel to fix behind Frank to make sure he didn't move :(

Nothing more to report. I've learnt my lesson, and at Christmas I delivered a cake with THREE figures with it - and asssembled it upon arrival, NOT before I travelled with it!

Happy Baking x