Greetings from Queen 10c - Niamh Geraghty Perfectionist Confectionist

Hi there, my piece.  I shouldn't say this but I am . .  I knew exactly what piece I was going to end up (I'll tell you how in a later post).  I knew if I er, put myself down for the Stacks those that know me would smell a rat but they'd never guess I love Poolbeg as much as I do.  

I love, like REALLY LOVE, this part of Dublin.  I grew up being able to see it after all.  But I'm not going into all of that now, as I've already said, I get to make a couple of posts on this blog (the power)later when the other 49 Queens have had their say.

I made a chocolate biscuit cake and, despite tut-tutting at all the "how tall is it to be Niamh? I still managed to make mine 1.5cm short.  Doesn't sound like much but in this instance it was.  Thankfully none of my other Queens got to see my piece and, until now, none where the wiser as to how my piece was on a piece of sugar paste. . . on a cake card and er, on a piece of foam core board. 

Having finally got the height right I started copying my image onto the piece of florist paste.  I used tracing paper and a graphite pencil, reversed the image, went over it again and then laid it on top of my paste.  I ran the pencil over the lines again and it transferred enough for em to be able to see what I was doing.  

Then it was simply a matter of painting it.  But God, I love the colour blue and there are so many shades to choose from if, like us lot, you frequent cake shops.  I think I used about six different combinations of colour to get that particular look.  

Everything from baby blue to ice blue, spruce green, eucalyptus and navy.  Yup, love the blues.  Unless they are being sung by some warbling aul' wan in your local pub.  Ah, but yet again, I digress.

I am brutal at royal icing so I decided to use an extruder to make my 'lines'.  I gave them, ooh roughly, ten minutes to firm up and then painted them gold.  

I trimmed the piece down and sat it on top of my now ganached brick of chocolate biscuit cake.

Where I left if for a week before being overcome by a need to make the sea look like it was made up of stars and carefully lashed (I know, I know!!  But I am sure you can be careful in your lashing on of stuff) a load of edible glitter on it, cackle.  I used non-pareils to make the bubbles and . . yeah, that's it.  That's how I made my piece and I do love it.

Have loved the experience of working with so many great artists and love the fact that no one, as of yet, has noticed the sneaky moustache on my Poolbeg Lighthouse.  Haha, it matches mine!