I have become quite good at baking cakes and wanted to move to the next stage of baking a novelty shaped one. I was then approached by a friend of mine who wanted a cake for her dads 60th birthday. Having met her dad quite a few times I knew that one of his favourite things was to sit in his shed (which by the way is the size of a small house), so I instantly thought of a shed cake. I accepted the challenge and began designing and planning the creation.
I knew that a Madeira based cake would be best as it holds itself better when carved and can take the weight of other layers and icing.
I decide to make a traditional looking shed rather than a copy of his own as that would involve me having a degree in structural engineering, which I didn't really have time to get.
On the day of baking I set work by baking 2 large rectangular Madeira sponges, cut them in half and stacked them on top of each other, fusing the layers with mixed fruit jam and vanilla butter cream.
I then carved the roof which was a bit tricky, but with the help of my ruler and a steady hand I was able to achieve a good looking roof.
Now the fun bit could begin so I began by adding a crumb layer of vanilla butter cream all over the cake and smoothed over using a wet palette knife. I allowed this to dry for and hour or so then added another thin layer of butter cream making the surface as smooth as possible. This then went in the fridge over night to harden.
The next morning I set to work in covering the cake in ready made sugar paste icing. I bought this online which I would highly recommend if you don't have a good cake supplier nearby.
I chose to use chocolate flavoured sugar paste as this matched a wood look the best and normal coloured sugar paste for the rest. Rolling out a large amount of chocolate sugar paste is not as easy as it looks especially on a warm day as it starts to stick and melt. I got there in the end and managed to get a large enough disc to cover the cake. I then smoothed the edges with a cake smoother, which is a little like a plasterers tool.
I made the roof by mixing a little black and white sugar paste together to make a grey coloured icing, something which I had never done before and was quite surprised on how easy it was.
I then added all the other little details such as the windows and doors and drew on planks of wood with my new swanky icing pen, which was fab.
I place the whole cake on a rolled out piece of green icing and added little flowers using a flower shaped punch.
I then remembered that he had a tractor and decided to add one of my sons toy tractors (which he cried about, even though he had not played with it in over a year), and some sugar paste tools.
Voila, my creation was complete. That afternoon my friend came and picked up the cake. Her dad was over the moon and the best thing is that everyone agreed that it tasted delicious.
(Alf cutting his cake)
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