Perth Royal Show

And so the saga continues! For those who followed the storyline on Cake Decorators ... Buck up or Buck out, read on.

It all began, as I started to ponder what to create for the Perth Show. Hours spent studying the show schedule online before it even got to hard copy print, and, many hours Googling, Flickring and Facebooking searching for inspiration. The one cake I kept coming back to again and again, was this one: Ice Diamond from Cake Chester in the UK. At first I couldn't work out why I was so in love with the cake. Grey is not a colour I would normally 'go for', but the more I studied it the more I loved this cake. Now, normally, when I see someone else's work, I get inspired to build on one idea or feature, and eventually it came to me ... it's that stunning pillar that I simply must have.

Thus I embarked on mission impossible: find a gorgeous pillar like the one in the Ice Diamond cake, and find it in Perth. And of course, make it comply with the Show Schedule .... amongst other things, no glass components permitted. "You want a WHAT 'mam? ... and you say you want this for a wedding cake?" says incredulous shop assistant after incredulous shop assistant! Suffice to say, I purchased several items before I found THE ONE at a little gift shop in Ocean Keys. My husband's daughter, Lynda, is quick to remind me that it was she who took me there and was with me when the said item was purchased!

Classically elegant. Timeless. But most importantly, not glass. Yes, it looked like marble, but is actually plastic and resin. Yep, that was THE ONE.

Now I had to set about designing a cake based on this gorgeous thing. And again, it had to comply with the competition schedule, which called for "a creative 3 tier wedding cake ... the design to feature 3 different shape cakes".  It didn't take long to work around the design of the chosen separator, and I settled on an octagonal base cake, to match the base of the separator. Middle tier followed the theme and was a simple round column cake. And the top tier, well that had to be curved to finish the theme.

As I've learned (as both a competitor and a judge) you can use styrofoam (where the rules allow for it) on cakes that are 'traditionally' cake. So square, round and octagonal ... no problem. But curved? Well (pardon the pun), that's another ball game! Hence, cake is called for ... or at least you must be able to prove that it's possible to use cake. So, step one: search high and low for a ball shaped tin; find one on the internet, and buy it. Step two: bake a ball shaped cake! Yes, make sure it's a fruit cake if the rules specify fruit cake!  Then cut a smallish slice off the top of the cake, tilt it on it's side and drill a hole right through the cake.

Next, I had to create a posy pick to hold the floral arrangements. I soon realised them commercial things would simply NOT do. They're only about 5 - 10 mm diameter, and I had this vision of a large arrangements of flowers cascading down that luvverly pillar. So, I resorted to a piece of PVC pipe. (Actually I sacrificed a cake roller that has seen 2 decades of trusty use), and sawed off the end of it. Then cut it at an angle and covered it with cake board paper. Insert it into the hole in the cake.

After covering with fondant, came the fun part ... adding those now infamous Rice Krispie Treats! I wanted to have more of a curve to the ball, and so I sculpted out some 'wings' with the RKT. It took quite a bit of fiddling to sculpt them on, and eventually shaving some off till I was happy with the shape.

 

Then came the shock news that my carefully sculpted RKT vase had to go! Well, at least the RKT had to go. Eventually I plucked up the courage to attack it, and off it came. I confess approaching the process in fear and trepidation, as I was worried about breaking it all, but to my surprise the RKT chipped off relatively easily and I was back at the drawing board, but out of inspiration for any other 'creative shape' for the 3rd tier.  So, the topless, tilting ball remained.

Next stage was to design the board and base tier. So, I started with a paper template of a square, 16.5 inch,  folded it in four to determine the centre, and then traced around the base of the separator. Next stage was to draw a line out from the cut off corners of the base to the edge of the paper template. In this way I could easily map out size of the corners to be cut off the board, and of the base cake (which started out as an 11" square).

Then, to construct the board, which I wanted to be "as strong as an ox, but as light as a feather" This called for engineering from handy hubby. We used 2 sheets of 3mm MDF, and cut them to the exact shape of the template. The trick was to separate the MDF with a thin piece of wood (20 mm) around the edges to create the depth of board I wanted. So, other than a small piece of support wood in the centre, the board is hollow. The hardest bit was getting the corners of the hexagon mitred to the correct angle. Then 4 bits of round wood from Bunnings glued and screwed in at the corners continued the theme of the separator base. A couple of coats of black paint to seal, and then ito simulate the antique effect of the separator, I drag painted with a dryish brush using silvery/gold paint. And finally a large dowel smack up the middle.

The next tricky stage was colour matching the fondant to the marble colour on the separator. A bit of this, a bit of that. A bit more of this, a bit more of that. Ivories, greys and greens. And I had to make enough to cover all three tiers of the cake! Then finally, the marbling effect. What I've found is that you generally need the teeniest amount of marbling colours. Much less than you think you'll need. If you use too much, the marbling loses it's subtlety. So I probably mixed up around 2 - 3 kg of fondant in the base colour, and used about a marble size each of peach and charcoal grey to achieve the marbling.
 

All three tiers covered, and then a coat or three of very expensive Fabilo spray-on edible glaze finished the marble effect. All I then needed to do was to thread the whole creation through the dowel, secure the ball with royal icing and add the flowers: roses, hydrangeas, tuberoses, ivy and eucalyptus. What I didn't bargain on what just how tall the thing would be, and found myself needing a small ladder to insert the stems into the giant 'posy pick'. Well that, and the difficulty of getting them in and fiddling with their placement without breaking them. And break lots, I did!!

The trim  I made to match the trim on the separator. I copied several of the designs and incorporated different ones on each tier. They are just black fondant, drag painted using a blend of Squires gold and silver edible metallic dust. 

But that wasn't the end of the story. The final drama came when we tried to load it into the car to transport to the Show. Eeeek! the cake stood 960 mm tall, and the clearance on my car and that of my husband's was nowhere near big enough to accommodate the cake! This called for some last minute panic phone calls and finally a borrowed Jeep Cherokee to transport said item to the Perth Royal Show (and back again)

Was it all worth it? You betcha!! I not only picked up the first prize for my creation, I also won the special award for "the most outstanding wedding cake on the show". Hope you all like it. Here it is: