Many steps to the final project!

Sometimes I get a cake idea and think "Gosh - that will be so simple to do!" Then I start the process and realize, "Gosh - this takes many, many steps to complete!" Case in point was the office monthly birthday cake for January. My thought process was - January, winter theme, penguins and igloos! Very cute, right?

I started the process by making the penguins. Since I was attempting my very first fondant figures, I knew I needed to get going on them so they would have time to dry. The first guy turned out to look like a "sumo penguin" - cute, but just a little super sized!(That's him on the far left!) He also lookes like he is wearing some kind of hood, but he was a good starting point for making the other two.

Next step was making the trees - I used sugar cones and layered royal icing over the top of them to shape them like evergreens. My first problem was my royal icing blended together, forming a solid sheet of green. NOT the effect I was looking for! I adjusted that by making lines of icing with a space in between - after that dried, I went up a row and did the same thing between the existing lines. Probably an easier way to do this, but it ended up working for me! The worst part really was the drying time. Overall it probably took me about 5 hours to finish all three trees!


I had made the igloo a week before, crumb coated it and had it waiting in the wings for final assembly. I rolled out the white fondant and then used a garland measurer (it was flexible to go around the curves) to press the "ice blocks" into the fondant. Once the sheet cake was frosted, I positioned the igloo on the cake. I decided it would be cute to make it look like a stash of snowballs was ringing the igloo.

The office loved the cake - I'm so lucky they support my efforts each month! The final product?





Now to start working on the February cake idea......