AMAZING
CAKES
s e k a c f Ace o
M O FRDAY 1!
AMAZE YOUR FRIENDS!
Step-by-ste
FIND US ON
p
instructions
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Pets
The hamster
house
rego by Barbara Pe
A Cake design
INTERMEDIATE
Ingredients
All children love little animals and the hamster is a particular favourite. So they will have fun playing with this hamster house, seeing their little furry friends running up and down the ladder, munching on peanuts and looking around at everything curiously with their sweet round eyes. And, if you have a tea party, you can prepare a little fondant hamster for each one of your guests to take home as a memento. It is bound to be a huge success! This guide uses quick to make cake crumb mixture (you can use left over cake or cupcakes, or some readymade sponge cakes) that is easy to shape and taste great. The hamsters and carrots are made from fondant, and CMC is then added to the hamster mix to make the icing even more elastic. The carrots turn out really well if you use marzipan and you can find ready to use marzipan blocks in most cake decoration shops. You can then colour the marzipan orange by adding food colouring and mixing it all together as you would do with fondant. Alternatively, you could make the carrots and paint them with food colouring once they have dried.
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A cake of your choice, 10-12cm high and 15cm in diameter 2.5kg chocolate fondant 500g white fondant 1kg cake crumb mix or a piece of cake 10-12cm and 10cm wide and two mini cakes. 250g grey fondant 250g light brown fondant 250g orange fondant 150g green fondant 150g black fondant 100g pink fondant Cornflakes Chocolate biscuit sticks CMC powder
Equipment Cake board, 35cm in diameter Food-safe paintbrush One small round fondant cutter or the cap of a foodsafe pen Brown ribbon 115cm long Ball-tip fondant tool
Step-by-step
1
TIP!
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Cover the 15cm cake with chocolate fondant. Use the cake crumb mixture (which you make by mixing left over cake or
cupcakes with a crumb coat of your choice until you get a pliable consistency) or a piece of cake cut to size, to make a wedge the same height as the cake. Your wedge should be about 10cm
3
Use the cake crumb mixture to make two long cylinders of about 6m long (you could also use two mini cakes). Cover the top
part with a black fondant disc. Add a tiny bit of CMC to a piece of
wide and should slope down gradually from the top of the cake
chocolate fondant and roll out a strip of about 9cm long. Spread
to the bottom so you can use it to make the hamsters’ ladder.
one cylinder with crumb coat and put the chocolate strip over it.You
Cover the wedge with chocolate fondant.
want to create a cover for the cylinder which is in line with the edge at one end but is 2-3 cm longer than the cylinder at the other.
2
Spread a light coloured jam or a cream of your choice (ideally, one which doesn’t need to be kept in the fridge, like
white chocolate cream) over the cake board. Stick the cake to the board in line with the edge of the board at the back. Stick the highest part of the wedge to the front of the cake.
4
Place the cylinder so that the join is underneath, leave the fondant which is overhanging one end but cut off the
excess fondant at the side. Leave the cylinder in an upright position to dry, making sure the underside doesn’t get crushed.
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Pets
5
Repeat steps 3 and 4 with the other cylinder, only this time leaving the chocolate covering 5-6cm over. When both
coverings become hard, place them at the sides of the steps, with the closed ends against the side of the cake.
7
Take the chocolate biscuit sticks, put a little bit of crumb coat on the “underside" and stick them to your wedge so
they look like individual rungs on the ladder. Put one biscuit at the top where the wedge meets the cake, one at the bottom of the wedge at the base of the ladder, and then space the other biscuits equally in between.
6
Take some bits of chocolate fondant and knead them so that they soften and use them to cover the joins between
the steps and the cake and between the two cylinders and the cake. Smooth them over with your fingers. You could also edge the joins with little rolls of chocolate fondant.
8
Take two or three handfuls of cornflakes, put them in a freezer bag and crush them. Spread them on the cake
board, pressing them gently into the crumb coat so that they stay in place.
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Step-by-step
9
TIP!
lours you ith the co making w t n e Experim hamsters by e h dark use for th rown striped wit hite.... b w t h h g them li iped wit are the inger str s brown, g that the two end re Make su same colour.
It’s now time to make the hamsters. Add some CMC to both the white and grey fondant. Then, make a grey ball and a white ball,
about 40g each. Roll them, one at a time, in the palms of your hands to make them a bit longer, like cylinders with rounded ends. Put them on your work surface and gently press them on top to squash them a little. Cut each cylinder in three roughly equal parts with a sharp, nonserrated knife.
10
11
Use your fingertips to push the ends of the stripe over the edges of the other colour, so that the hamster’s body
is smooth and one colour flows into the other.
Use an icing
smoother or side of a knife blade to smooth the fondant on the sides so it is uniform and you create the shape you need.
Switch the middle parts of the cylinders so you have white in the middle of two grey pieces and vice versa.
Moisten the cut sides of the three pieces a little and stick them together so you end up with two complete cylinders with a different coloured stripe in the middle.
12
Place the cylinder upright on the work surface, pressing slightly so that the bottom flattens out. Gently bend the top part so
the hamster’s face looks straight ahead. Next, make two little white fondant balls and make them a bit longer so they form two teardrop shapes. These will be our furry friend's little hind paws.
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Pets
13
Slightly moisten the little teardrops and attach them underneath the hamster, pressing gently so they stick
properly. Stand the hamster up on your work surface and use a blade or the back of a knife to make two grooves at the front of
15
Use the blade to make a groove down the middle of the
16
Roll out a piece of grey and a piece of pink fondant.
hamster’s face. Then use a ball-tip fondant tool to make
two pits for the eyes either side of the groove, towards the top.
the paws so they look more realistic.
14
Repeat the same steps to give the hamster some front paws. Remember to moisten them and fix them
securely by pressing them into the body and holding them there for a few seconds.
Overlap the grey fondant with the pink and use a rolling
pin to make sure they stick together. Cut out little circles with a small fondant cutter or with the cap of a food-safe pen. Make a downward groove at the bottom of the circle.
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Step-by-step
17
Pinch the bottom part of the circle with your index finger and thumb so you create an ear shape. Moisten the ear a little and
attach it carefully above one of the eyes, a little to the outer side. Do the same with the other ear. Use a little red fondant ball to make the nose and fill the eye sockets with little black fondant balls.
18
19
Use the smallest side of the ball tool to make two eyes above the groove, and to each side, and fill the pits with two little
balls of black fondant. Make a little ball red fondant ball and place it in the centre of the face as a nose.
Now you need to make some walking hamsters. Repeat steps 9, 10 and 11. Hold the little hamster and pinch
the icing at one end to make a little tail. Make a groove at the other end as you did in step 15.
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Repeat steps 16 and part of step 17 to make the eyes and once again stick them above the eyes, slightly
towards the outer sides.
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Pets
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Knead 30g of orange fondant until it becomes soft and make a cylinder shape. Thin out one end and make the
other end round so that it the same shape as a carrot. Use a blade to make little slanted marks so that it looks like a real carrot.
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Make other hamsters using different colours and follow the previous steps to make more carrots. Decorate your
cake with these little animals and vegetables, starting from the surface of your main cake. You could also use real peanuts, as you can see in this photo.
22
Make 5 long little green fondant rolls and place them next to one another, with one on top. Squeeze them
together at the bottom so that they join. Insert a toothpick or a strand of uncooked spaghetti into the top part of the carrot (the rounded end) and push the green fondant into the toothpick so that it looks like a carrot and its leaf.
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Put the remaining decorations wherever you like. Try and make the hamsters look natural. Don’t place them all at
the front of the cake but put them to face each other, or as if they are coming out of a tube, running up and down the ladder or even eating (you could put a peanut between their paws). Finally, edge the cake board with ribbon.
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