Bottle of Baileys & Cups
Two 3 1/2 inch cakes for the bottle, & one 2 inch for
the cups.
The bottle was meant to be life size - I measured the
diameters of the bottle of baileys & drew out the cross section on graph paper.
I knew there'd be 1/2 inch of marzipan all round ( 2 layers , each 1/4 inch) so
I drew a line 1/2 inch inside of my original line & that gave me the diameter of
the cake I needed (i.e. 3 1/2 inches)

Cake top trimmed
I pinned greaseproof paper round as a guide & cut top of biggest cake level

Sides trimmed.
I turned cake over, stuck a 3 inch cake board on bottom & trimmed (electric
carving knife) from edge of cake board down sides to outer bottom corner so as
to slope sides- then turned cake over again & it looked like this picture.

Next cake added.
I stuck the smaller 3 1/2 inch cake on top, with layer of marzipan in between,
then pinned a 1 1/4 inch diameter paper circle on the top (got the dimensions
from my pencil drawing) & used that as a guide to angle the sided of this cake,
as in picture

Pushed in a dowel
It went right to the bottom

Shaped bottom of dowel
Added marzipan at bottom of dowel and smoothed it to
shape

First marzipan
Did the marzipan in 2 halves with vertical seam down
middle cause the original bottle has a vertical seam- I used 1/4 inch spacers to
get a controlled thickness when I rolled marzipan out (BIG thanks to the maestro
Christine for telling me about those!) cause I knew the thickness of the final
covering had to be the same as the marzipan I was painting the labels on, or the
labels wouldn’t sit flush with the cake sides

More marzipan.
The bottom layer finished

Back label.
Painted it on 1/4 inch thick white marzipan, using
paste colours & gold luster powder diluted in vodka.
I stuck some greaseproof paper over the real label on the original bottle, &
traced the design- then pinned that paper on top of marzipan & traced over the
design again with a smooth, blunt but fine-ended "scriber" (wrong end of sewing
needle held in pin-vice), which gave a lightly indented mark on the marzipan

Finished back label.
Painted & trimmed label. I wrapped it in waxed paper &
it kept sufficiently moist & pliable for a couple of days.
Top layer marzipan.
First half of black marzipan added

Rest of black marzipan.
2nd half of black marzipan added, plus an extra bit at the top to form the
bottle cap

Back label 1.
I pinned the paper tracing of the label on to the side of the cake, & cut round
it with a scalpel, & removed the top layer of marzipan

Back label 2.
The painted label stuck in to the "excavated" shape

Front label 1.
Excavated space for front label

Front label 2.
Front label added
Making Cups

Cake for cups 1
Trimmed level

Cake for cups 2
Cut in two

Cake for cups 3.
Sugar paste on tops

Cake for cups 4.
Sugar paste added to sides.
The handles I made from 50/50 sugar paste & flower paste. The saucers from
flower paste, left to dry on cornflower-dusted china saucers
Copy written © 2004
By Christopher Bailey the author of the above work