Carousel Birthday Cake

It was one of my very best friends Annies birthday so I knew I had to do something special. This cake was more about the presentation than the actual cake to be honest, not exactly understated.

It took me ages to finish as there were loads of little bits to do gradually, not much of a chore though as I just sat on the sofa and did it whilst I was doing other things- which included getting drunk, being drunk, and being hungover unfortuately, as Annies birthday fell on a Sunday and I had a weekend long booze session by accident.

To make the supports for the canopy I covered straws in icing, I could have used doweling rods but this seemed to be a much more cost effective way to do things.

I made the horses out of fondant icing, and made the canopy out of card and then covered it in icing. I glazed it by painting vodka on it, a little trick to make sure its shiny!

Of course the worlds classiest cake wouldn't be complete without edible glitter.

The cake itself was baked on Saturday afternoon after a few pints in the local (Electric in Chorlton) so I had a little audience cheering me on...

I made a lemon curd cake for the actual cake component, just a basic lemon sponge with a lemon buttercream and lemon curd...

And then it was time to cover it!

I attached the horses to the poles with royal icing (the cement of the baking world as my flatmate declared) and pushed them into the cake, it wasn't as steady as I would have wanted but just about held up the canopy. Note the excess of icing sugar- a lot of bleaching went on once the cake was finished and i'm sure there is still icing stuck to the surfaces.

It just about made it to the venue (The horse and Jockey- which is only across the road from our house) but the canopy was falling off a little bit. But the birthday girl seemed happy with it and that is the main thing!

Although we didn't eat it- as you can see above everyone was a little bit hungover and a lot stuffed full of roast dinner. But don't worry, a few pints soon helped that...

Soph x