to look like a wooden spoon.
Making Clothes
How you dress your characters is the final statement of their personality. Here I will show you how to make a pair of dungarees and a dress, both of which are very simple. With any clothing, you have to tailor it to the size of the body you are dressing, making sure the garments fit from side to side and from top to bottom.
Front of garment – trouser section and bib. Pockets with stitch marks add interest.
Back of garment – trouser section and braces. Patches add colour and fun.
Front of garment – square neck with a double frill and ribbon decoration.
Back of garment – high cut with a button opening. You could also add sleeves.
Shoes and Hats
Accessories such as hats and shoes are great fun to make. It is these little finishing touches that add to the charm of your finished character. Now you have lots of inspiration to create your own characters with bags of personality!
Girl’s red shoe – with separate sole, strap, button detail and socks. Use dry spaghetti to attach directly to the end of the leg.
Pink slipper – with white bow. The inside is hollowed out with tool no.1 for the leg to be slipped inside.
Blue boot – with red heart tie and sole. The top is hollowed out just wide enough to fit the leg.
Black and white sports shoe – with tongue, laces and stitch marked detail. Again, the inside is hollowed out so that the leg can sit inside.
Bobble hat – formed from a cone of sugarpaste hollowed out with fingers to fit the head. Decorated with bands, stripes and furry bobbles extruded through a sugar press (or garlic press).
Cap – formed from a ball of sugarpaste, slightly flattened with a finger with a peak attached. Finished with a ball on the top and a contrasting trim around the peak.
Sun hat – made by mixing three or four different shades together to form a ball and flattening the top with a finger. A cut-out circle is attached for the brim.
Frilling
Frills can be used to decorate the side of the cake, or to make the edge of a pillow or a petticoat. You will need a special cutter called a Garrett frill cutter, which is available in two types – circle and straight. The circular cutter comes with three inner circles of different sizes to determine the depth of the frill. To make the frill, use a cocktail stick, a frilling tool, or the end of your paintbrush. Place your chosen tool on the edge of the frill and work it in a backwards and forwards motion, without putting too much pressure on it. The frill will lift where you have rolled. Continue with each section in turn until it is completed. A straight Garrett frill cutter will allow you to make a long frilled strip. The technique for frilling is exactly the same.
Texturing Sugarpaste
A great way of adding interest to your cakes is to use textured patterns in the sugarpaste. Texture can be created using impression mats or with textured rolling pins. These can be used to add designs to a large area, such as a covered cake board, or for smaller details such as clothing. Some of the fantastic textures available are shown here.
Recipes
Before you can get on with the business of decorating your cake, first you need to bake it! While there are thousands of books on cake making for you to refer to, here are my tried-and-tested recipes for both sponge and fruit cakes, for the small cakes that you will find at the end of every project, and for some additional things you will need to make.
Madeira Cake
This is a very nice firm cake that will keep for up to two weeks, giving you plenty of time to decorate it. It can also be frozen. I use it because it stays firm and will not sink when you place sugarpaste characters on the top. The recipe here is for a plain cake, but you can flavour both the sponge and the buttercream to suit your own taste.
Tip
The temperatures stated and baking times given are for fan-assisted ovens, which is what I use. If you are using a conventional oven, you will need to adjust the timings accordingly.
Ingredients
For a 20cm (8in) cake
Method
1
