Sugarpaste penguin tutorial

The last time I made my penguins they seemed to go down well. Quite a lot of people searched for how to make them, so I thought I'd do a little tutorial for all those who wanted to know.

They're quite take time, but aren't particularly difficult and good for decorating this time of year. What's nice is that (unintentionally) they all end up with different little personalities.

Step 1: Roll a thumb sized piece of white sugarpaste into a ball, then shape into a fat teardrop shape.

Step 2: Use a 45mm rose petal cutter on black sugarpaste and wrap it round the body like a coat.

Step 3: Roll tiny amounts of yellow sugarpaste into balls, flatten, then use a modelling tool (or cocktail stick) to make them into webbed feet. With a 30mm rose petal cutter cut out a base, and attach to the body as shown keeping some of the feet on the base.

Step 4: With a 15mm rose petal cutter make two wings and attach to the body.

Step 5: Roll a pea sized bit of black sugarpaste into a head.

Step 6: With the pointed end of a modelling tool, make an indentation in the head. Roll a tiny piece of yellow sugarpaste into a ball, then make two pointed ends. Push one end into the head.

Step 7: Flatten two balls of white suagrpaste for the eyes, then add pupils with sugarpaste, gel or edible marker.

N.B. In a FMM 5-rose petal set the largest one is for the body, the middle one for the base, and the smallest one for the wings.

You can add other decorations, such as scarves, hats etc... I 'stuck' the bits together by moistening them and holding for a few seconds. Once completed I left them to dry. You could leave each seperate component to dry, then use edible glue, but it makes it harder to make changes.

If you give them a go, let me know I love to see how they turn out.

Masquerade Cake

My friend was having a masquerade party for her birthdayand I thought it would be fun to make a matching cake. The masks were popular for costumed balls in renaissance italy, particularly in Venice, deriving from the Venice Carnival. They're beautiful , ideally wearable, masks with amazingly intricate designs. Also they often have featers or collars, lik the ones below


I started with a 22cm/9in round chocolate cake, using the recipe from my cake decorating book. To be honest I was a little dissapointed with the outcome. It wasn't very chocolatey and was slightly more moist in the centre. I think I'll stick to my usual recipe in the future.
Next I cut it into a 'face' shape by trimming the edges. Personally I think it looked a bit like an Easter Island statue! I've seen one in the British Museum and they're really amazing things.

Before covering it with the white sugarpaste I cut it into two layers and added some Nutella (chocolate spread) to sandwich them together. I also used some jam on the top layer to make the sugarpaste stick. It was now ready for decorating!

Here it is:

The colours are rolled out sugarpaste, stuck on with royal icing. I also used the royal icing to outline some of the shapes and add some decoration to the forehead. Silver balls (dragees) added some sparkle. Sitting with the piping bag in my hand I couldn't help but add a border, I managed to stop there before I went really crazy!

The birthday girl loved it and a day later I still don't think it's been cut :