Lego stormtrooper cake v.2

I was asked some time ago by one of the mums at school if I would make a lego stormtrooper cake for her three year old's birthday today. I thought long and hard about it (would I have the time etc etc) and decided to give it a go. I worked out the cost of the ingredients and then plucked a figure from the air that I thought she might agree to pay, which she did.

Several weeks ago I coloured some fondant green (I was planning to do orange but discovered I didn't have orange colouring and didn't want to mix my own!), covered the cake board and left it to dry on top of my kitchen dresser. This made it much easier when I came to place the cake on the board this week - no annoying dents caused by finger nails catching the icing!

So on Monday this week I baked the cake and carved the shape and on Tuesday I covered it in white fondant, added the black fondant bits and piped black royal icing decoration. Then on Wednesday, I added the finishing touches of a belt and some lettering cut out of coloured fondant.

The cake was collected on Wednesday evening and I think they liked it!

I did say that I might get to do this cake again (following my first attempt during my cake decorating course) although I didn't think it would be so soon. I learned from my earlier mistakes and made the helmet much bigger this time and added a 3D belt. I also cut out the eye pieces from the white and dropped in some black pieces which worked well.

I also had a go at adding cake pieces to the head (under the fondant) to give some dimension to the helmet which worked well, although next time (did I say next time?) I will be braver and add more across the nose and mouth part to give it more dimension.

© 2011 Nicola Noble

Lego stormtrooper cake

Last night I went to my cake decorating course and started creating my lego stormtrooper cake. I had previously cut out the shape of the cake from the nice gluten free sponge (the horrid cornflour one got fed to the ducks yesterday!) and thankfully it didn't matter that the head had fallen off the body as I just stuck it all back together and hid it under the fondant.

I opted for a 2D approach rather than trying to make the stormtrooper. I managed to cut out and position a lot of the black fondant and the tutor introduced me to the art of "extruding" to get thin rope like pieces (another thing added to my Christmas list!) At the end of the session the cake did look a bit like an odd person with a black belt wearing a rucksack and hoodie and sporting a rather grand moustache ...

Luckily I had a free morning this morning, so while Sophie was at school I set to and finished it. I added some more black and created the lego hands, then finished off with some dark grey royal icing and a little bit of white royal icing on the face.

I am really pleased with the finished cake, although the head seems a bit too small and the belt went wrong. If this had been for a proper occasion I would have covered the old cake board too - not sure what colour I would have chosen though, maybe orange? As it was, I didn't have enough fondant (or time during the session) to cover it.  I'm sure that with a star wars mad husband and an almost two years old boy I will be making this cake again in the future so all things to learn for next time!

Gluten free cakes - and how not to make them

I have been doing a cake decorating course at my local adult community college and this coming week we are going to create a mini novelty cake. So, in a brief moment of madness I decided that mine was going to be a lego stormtrooper. Okay so that's not too bad ... but this is for my husband who, being gluten and dairy intolerant, feels really left out whenever I do some baking for the kids. So I found a new cake recipe in a birthday cake book that is made from cornflour, eggs and sugar.

Somehow I don't think I did it right because the resulting cake was disgusting. The top crust totally broke into bits and the bottom of the cake was an eggy disaster. I think that I mixed the eggs at too high a speed in the mixer and it really didn't taste good at all.

I did cut it into a rough stormtrooper shape but yesterday decided I was going to abandon it and try a more conventional cake. Through trial and error, I have discovered that my husband can eat processed milk products so this time I used butter, eggs and gluten free flour as per a normal victoria sponge. The resulting cake was soooo much better.

I am going to try the cornflour cake again, mixing the eggs at a very low speed this time and see whether that makes a difference. I'll post the results when I've done.