Gloverly Cupcakes

I love being asked to make cakes. But I love it even more when I get asked to make something that I haven’t made before, especially if it’s going to be a challenge. So I was pretty excited when Tom’s brother, Rem, asked if I would make his wedding cake. Of course I said yes, and came up with some suggestions. I gave them some traditional ideas but knowing that they both like rock climbing I said they could have something a bit alternative. I sent them a few photos of ideas and was pleased when they went with the ice climbing one – the white made it look more like a wedding cake than some of the other ones I found. Initially it seemed like a pretty straightforward cake to make. A chocolate sponge, Victoria sponge and a fruit cake, all covered in plain white icing with a  bit of royal icing and a couple of figures. The challenge for me was working out how/when to assemble it and transport it. Because of the “ice wall” on it, I had no choice but to assemble it before I transported it. Not something I’ve done before but I got some great advice from the cake decorating shop around the corner from me – Love Cake Supplies – if you live in/south of Birmingham (England not America!) it’s definitely worth a visit! I was told that if I stuck each cake onto the board with royal icing before stacking them, and left it to dry out overnight then it would be fine – and it was. Phew. Having spent all day Thursday making and decorating the cake, Tom was forced to drive slowly and avoid every pot hole en route from Birmingham to the Lake District. I don’t think he enjoyed it much. However, he did a great job and the only damage was the loss of one crampon (easy to repair when you’ve taken your entire kitchen with you just in case).  Baking and icing the cakes didn’t take me too long – I spent most of the day making the figures. Rem and Ros sent me some photos of what they wanted to be wearing. Although the figures were never going to be completely life-like, I wanted them to be recognisable by using the correct colours for their boots, jackets and helmets. The photo above shows the stages that I made them – I started with the heads and gradually built the bodies up. I made a bit of a mistake – I left them flat on the work surface after they were finished which meant that they started to dry out completely flat. This meant that when I tried to stick them to the cake, the arms cracked a bit as I tried to get them to bend to fit round the cake. I made them with Mexican modelling paste – it was good to work with and much easier that ordinary fondant icing. The other time consuming thing to do (which I didn’t factor in) was making the ropes to go round the cake instead of ribbon. Trying to roll out an even “sausage” that was long enough to go round the cake took a couple of attempts. And painting on the “dots” got a bit boring after a while! The bit that was the most fun? That would have to be the ice wall. I made some really thick royal icing and just splodged (is that a word?!) it on to make it look like there were giant icicles. After it had hardened a bit I was able to brush it wish a shimmer dust and then I stuck the figures on. Obviously Ros had to be leading the way up the cake….