Cake Queen 1a - Grainne from A Cake For You - Made By You

Hi, I'm Grainne and I'm the owner of A Cake For You - Made By You, School of Cake Decorating in Dublin,Ireland.  I was delighted to be asked to contribute to this wonderful collaboration.  We are all very excited to see it finally come together in one magnificent collage of cake decorating techniques.

I used Rice Krispy Treat bars to construct base cake, cutting to size.  As I had an outside corner piece, I covered two sides in white chocolate modelling paste.  I used gum paste to cover the top.  Gum paste hardens quickly and is a good medium to use for adding decorative finishes using different techniques.  I airbrushed the surface, paying attention to lighter and darker sky areas as per the piece of the painting I was interpreting.  For the seagull, building and part of Halfpenny Bridge, I made off piece run outs on cellophane paper.  When dry, these were transferred to the piece and then painted with edible food paints or edible lustres mixed with isopropyl alcohol.  I then piped the outlines of the runouts in royal icing.  When dry, I painted the outlines and accented items in edible gold lustre.  The final touch was highlighting the sky and clouds which I did using a stipling technique using a sponge and coloured/marbled royal icing.