Cutler - Planet Cake Kids

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Get ready for a cake revolution!

The time has come to invite the next generation of cake-decorating superstars to pick up an icing smoother.

Cake decorating is not about being an expert or even a great baker. Its about being an artist and using your imagination to make amazing edible creations in sugar for your friends and family.

All you need are some of the skills outlined in this book, a few simple tools and some fondant icing. All of our cake toppers have been designed to be made by children aged eight years and over, and there is no need for any complex equipment.

The base cakes are designed to be made by adults or younger people of all skill levels.

My eight-year-old daughter, Estelle, is absolutely obsessed with making icing figurines, and has been asking me to write this book for a long time.

Estelles figurines are often better than those made by adults. This is not because she has an innate talent its because once you learn a few simple figurine techniques, the only limit is your imagination, which comes alive in 3D.

Like most of us, I enjoyed baking and making sweets from a very young age. I also received a huge ego boost when I presented my delights to amazed and appreciative grown-ups.

This book introduces children to this wonderful craft, which truly gives so much joy, confidence and limitless possibilities to anyone who engages with it. I want to encourage adults and children to have fun learning and sharing new skills, being creative and spending time together.

For everyone else, this book is a great place to learn how to make simple yet effective icing figurines and fantastic cake designs.

The basic premise of this book is that children will be making the cake toppers, and grown-ups will be making the base cake.

Children are delightfully creative, so when I first started writing this book I had one very important question: what cake toppers do kids want to design and make?

I decided to do an experiment, which involved going to a school camp, where we were given access to large groups of 812-year-olds. Fighting the urge not to prompt the children with ideas, I decided to bring all our icing colours along from pastels to primary colours and gave them free access to choose what they wanted. We then gave a brief demonstration on how to attach a head to a body with spaghetti and left them to it. Interestingly, not a single pastel colour was used: the most popular colours for both boys and girls were lime green, bright pink and orange, red and black!

The children made the most wonderful cake toppers; the designs that were continually repeated included family, pets, junk food and crazy creatures, and it was these that influenced the designs in this book.

I also gave them four basic cake shapes contained in this book to decorate and again I was in for a surprise, as they spent most of their time decorating the sides of the cake rather than the top.

At the end of the day, I turned to my right-hand decorator, Anna Maria, and we were both delightfully shocked. We should have had kids in our kitchen long before now!

HEY KIDS!

My daughter, Estelle, is eight years old and often works at Planet Cake making cake toppers. She also brings all her friends, and there are so many kids having fun with sugar at our shop, I decided to write this book so that you too can become a Cake Artist.

Being a Cake Artist is one of the best jobs you could ever have. You get to use your imagination and create your own cake topper designs. You get to work with other creative people other kids, grown-ups, or even Mum or Dad. And you basically just play all day sculpting different characters out of sugar.

Does this sound like fun so far? I havent told you the best bit yet! After you have made your incredible edible creations and placed them on an amazing cake, you get to give the cake to someone special. Its a really special feeling to give someone a magical cake. It makes you feel very proud of yourself and then you cant wait to make the next one!

I could have written this book just for kids, but Ive included grown-ups as well, because its always fun to work on a cake together, and the cake will be even better than if you worked on your own. Grown-ups need kids help because kids often have better imaginations which is why you should make the cake toppers. However, the cake base may be a trickier job, and grown-ups would probably be more experienced with this.

Perhaps there are some really talented kids who would like to make both the toppers and the cake. That would be fantastic, but these projects are really fun to share.

After all, cakes are all about making people happy!

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

Before we get to the fun bit creating a beautiful cake base and topping it with hand-crafted figurines! its a good idea to have a look through the decorating basics explained , especially if youre new to cake decorating.

In particular, explaining some terms and items you may not be familiar with if youre new to this business of being a Cake Artist.

Youll also find some great recipes for making your own . These are the same cakes that we use at Planet Cake, so we know the recipes work well, the cakes are firm enough to give a good basis for decorating, and they also store well.

Then its time to unleash your creativity. Flick through this chapter and youll see just some of the possibilities for topping different basic cake designs with a whole range of figurine families. You can literally mix and match your preferred cake base with your preferred figurine or figurines, to suit a particular person or certain occasion.

See which combinations appeal to the creative team, then just hop to it.

Once youve had a look at some nifty techniques to get great effects with . These figurines need some time to dry, so its a good idea to get kids working on these well ahead of final decorating time.

The next step is to cut and shape your choice of baked cake, following the . Each cake design lists the particular materials and equipment youll need, and the steps you need to take.

Rest assured this isnt as complicated as it may sound once you get the hang of it and see the finished cake in all its glory, youll find the whole process immensely rewarding.

You probably wont need it, but theres also a quick section on Trouble-shooting at the back of the book, just in case of little mishaps. So lets have some fun!

Mix and match make it your own

It is important to choose your figurines first, as they will be the focus of the cake, and choose the cake design second, as the cake is really a stage for the figurines.

The figurines in this book are based on different families of creatures, but I encourage you to mix them up its exciting to see a monster with a dog, or a dragon with a superhero.

The best thing about the cake toppers is that you are not at all limited. Once you learn that they are only as complex as dry spaghetti and icing, the design possibilities are literally endless. So feel free to mix up your cake designs and characters, and also to improvise on these designs.