Cake as canvas: part 2

I’m excited about this cake as canvas thing. This time I took the edible ink pens out of the hands of my children and had a go myself.

First I coloured my fondant. I used food colouring gel (that I bought from here a couple of years ago to make vibrantly-coloured playdough). The gel is powerful stuff. You truly only need a little bit.

For example, to colour a whole packet of fondant to the gorgeous peachy hue you see in the photos, I used just quarter of a teaspoon of orange colouring. It’s a bit like salt: just add a little at a time, because you can always add more but once your dish is reminiscent of the Dead Sea (or icing is a searingly bright orange), there’s no going back.

I am obsessed with words and letters and I wanted to create a cake that was celebratory but also looked kind of like a page of typing. Do you think I succeeded?

It took patience (something I’m not usually blessed with abundant amounts of) to decorate this as I had to ink each letter individually. It was worth it though.

I’ve interrogated individual parties to no avail, but it looks to me like a baby betty finger might have had a little poke at the “O” in the bottom right corner (as we’re looking at it). Makes me giggle.

Once I finished the cake and stood back and looked at it I knew it reminded me of something but couldn’t quite put my finger on what. Until this afternoon when I took a black and white shot and it suddenly dawned.

I do sense an “SPQR” cake in my future. Which is probably not only a better idea but also a little less permanent than the SPQR tattoo I considered getting a few years ago shortly after we got back from Rome.

So many possibilities with stamps and fondant: whole tracts of text (nerdy: love it), personal messages, colourful alphabets. Lots more cake as canvas and food as canvas ideas coming up.