chocolate madeira cakes

Two bowl-shaped ones and a round one. This was mistake no. 1 - the small round cake should have been wider!


Top cut off "bowl" no.1


top piece cut into a round, flat "disc"



circle of marzipan on top of "flat disc"
 
 
The marzipan overhung the cake by an inch or so - it was black because it was leftover from another cake!
 

bottom of bowl 1 added
 
 
The marzipan was gently shaped with fingers. Jam was used top & bottom of marzipan to "glue" everything together.

Natural coloured marzipan rolled out using spacers.


Marzipan draped over cake


Gently eased with fingers into sides of cake
 
Smoothed with plastic "smoother" (and any other smooth object that come to hand!)


"Bowl" cake no.2



Top flattened


Inverted


Checking for size on the "eggcup"


the third cake on top - proof of "mistake no.1" mentioned earlier!
 
 
Te marzipan between the two layers was 1/4" thick and over-sized by about 1", and then shaped with fingers. The top cake should have been wider so I could carve the whole in to an egg shape. An it was, I had to build up the sides with marzipan!


Sides built up into egg shape with marzipan


Sides covered in white fondant icing



And the top


coloured marzipan round sides
 
The marzipan was trimmed deliberately low so i could thin the top edge (using a plastic smoother) to look more like a shell



Top edges of "shell" thinned and "cracked" pieces added round back


More "cracks" in shell added


Big mistake no.2
 
When I put the "egg" on top of the "eggcup" the latter started to collapse before my eyes (surprise, surprise!) so I quickly took the egg off and put 3 plastic dowels in the bottom cake

  

Tops of three dowels


It still looked unsteady, so...


...Three more dowels added!


Green fondant icing added visible part of cake board
 
The fondant was roughly textured by hand.


"yolk" added - yellow royal icing


Dark blue ribbon glued round edge of cake board

Copy written © 2005
 By Christopher Bailey the author of the above work