Mud Room and Garden Cake

For my dad's cake this year I decided to create something that has been talked about a fair bit recently.. a mud room/utility room which leads from the garden to the kitchen. My dad likes fruit cake so we decided to make a light fruit sponge, this is the recipe we used for our wedding cake. 

I doubled the recipe and used my new multisized tin. 

The hardest thing was choosing the size!!

I was really happy with the bake on this cake

Good bake on the cake

I left the cake to cool and then covered it in butter icing. Using all my new tools I created the smoothest finish I could on the cake. Left it to chill and then covered the cake in green sugar paste icing. 

Covered cake

It was a slightly rough finish because the butter icing was a little hard underneath. This smooth over once it reached room temperature. 

The next step was creating the design. Using sugar paste I broke it down and made it piece by piece. I made cupboards for the kitchen, a washing machine (or washer/dryer) for the utility room. I then made a little chair and boots for dad. Finally I wanted to make my cake more of an autumn theme so I placed a tree in the garden and created some leaves on the grass. I scattered a few around to show how they blow around. 

Kitchen and utility room up close

Tree and leaves

I wanted to show dad in the garden so I decided to create my first ever character, loosely based on my dad. I've never tried to make people before so this was a challenge. I was fairly pleased with my finished product, the eyes could have been better and I think the legs could have done with being longer as he's a little out of proportion. 

Finally I made up some royal icing and piped the words on the board.

Finished cake

Alternative view of the cake

I was pleased with the final product. Still not perfect but I'm getting much better. I'm sure my dad will like it and that's the most important thing. 

If you'd like to order a cake I'm currently doing them for the price of the ingredients (October 2013). Please get in touch with your ideas.