I love making and decorating cakes, so set myself the task of making a good looking but yummy tasting cake...ie no fondant for my daughter's 3rd birthday party.
I have nothing wrong with fondant, I've used it before and it makes fabulous cakes. But I hate eating fondant and so do many people I know. I didn't want to be stuck taking home 3/4 of a cake I wasn't going to eat.
I may have cheated slightly and used a premade double sponge cake because I ran out of time with working the 4 days leading up to her party.
I used a basic butter cream recipe for the icing, and smoothed it with a hot knife. Thank you google for that trick! The boulders were done in a similar method, with added cocoa powder to make the icing brown.
The 'sand' is blitzed up sweet biscuits with a little butter. To stop it falling off the plate, I made a quick sugar syrup and painted it on the plate before topping with the biscuit mixture.
The kelp forest is made from white chocolate, melted and tinted green with food colouring. I piped it onto baking paper using a piping bag and nozzle [a ziplock bag with a small hole cut would do the same thing]. Before it hardened I dropped small silver and blue dragees [aka edible ball bearings] on to some.
I left it to harden and then peeled them off the paper before pressing into the iced cake. They were rather delicate, with a fair few snapping when I tried putting them on the cake, so make lots of extras!
A dusting of edible glitter and a few more dragees on the 'sand' completed the cake!
I was very happy to say it was a total success at the party, all I went home with was a plate with glued on biscuit crumbs on it!
