THE "SIRI" CAKE - 17” high 3D Black Corset

Welcome to the first blog on cake construction.  I chose to put the “Siri” cake on the blog because of its challenges and because it was the first time I was attempting to build a tall, upright, 3D carved cake.  I made lots of mistakes along the way, and would definitely do it differently next time around, but I learned an enormous amount.  It also gave me the opportunity to share the making of the cake with the lovely lady who will be receiving this for her 30^th birthday.

If you have better ways of doing this, or on reading it, have some handy tips and tricks for me, please share!

PREPARATION

  

I decided against Styrofoam or rice crispies for portions of the model as I wanted it to be all cake, so I constructed it in three layers with a board between layers, supported with dowel and with a centre pole.

The cake took 2 x 10” square mud cakes, 2 x 9” round mud cakes and 1 x 8” round mud cake plus 4.8 kilos of couveture chocolate ganache.  While I had a small bowl of ganache left, there was very little cake left. 

SHAPING THE CAKES

   

I considered stacking all the cakes and then carving, but decided against it … went for building the shape a layer at a time.  Maybe I would have had a little more control over the shape (which I was not particularly happy with) if I had carved the stack … not sure.

To have reasonably even cakes (height wise) meant that the chest area was split between two separated layers .. again, perhaps not best for getting the shape perfect.  I was just fearful of making any one “supported” layer too heavy.  This did have it challenges though!  

SKIN COLOUR 

I used ready to roll icing mixed into a skin colour from a base white to cover the cake.  I added brown, red and yellow colouring to the white to get the skin tone.  I only covered the top and the bottom of the cake to make it easier as the corset would cover the middle and I didn’t want too many layers of icing.  Once the skin colour had been rolled and applied, I used an airbrush with brown and orange colour to create shades and a deeper colour (not really obvious on the photo).

I used a darker icing for the nipples (just habit) but the corset would cover this anyway.

BLACK CORSET

The corset was once again made from ready to roll white icing, coloured black.  As I had made the bottom half of the cake a little longer than I had wanted (ideally would have liked a longer waist and less cake around the hip area), I also used the black to create a black g-string.

FINISHING TOUCHES

To finish the cake, I applied a flower and leaf glaze to add a nice “leather look” sheen without being too shiny.  I added shaping and ribbons to the back, a tattoo where I had made a mistake J and a diamonte necklace made from some silver twine (not edible), iced “S” and swavoski crystals.  I chose to add material ribbons as opposed to “icing” ribbons for a more authentic look.

Would love to hear any ideas of alternative methods of construction or tips that may have helped along the way.

Thanks for visiting :)

FOR MORE CAKES :  Please become a fan of my facebook page: EMSEN LANE CAKE ARTISTRY.