Carving with the help of a model

Not an easy task

Done carving

Carving was sharp but the fondant lost detail

Crumb coat

Flash left

Flash right

Flash back hahaha

Frontal Flash

Flash from above

This is the end

Everything but the end

This is the second car I have ever attempted. I must say it went a million times smoother than the Porsche. This time I knew carving was key, and that some things (like making the car appear like it’s being supported on wheels – or even having wheels to begin with) are simply unnecessary – especially for a 3 year old. Although this particular three year old can tell a car make by its headlights at night (already), father driving a Porsche (for real) and all – I was a bit nervous to see whether he would pick up on the lack of certain details – like tailpipes.

I used a 10 inch square pan, two inches high and baked the Chocolate Guinness cake because it carves so well. I simply cut the cake in half and my two 5×10 inch pieces were stacked one on top the other and I began carving. Another nephew kindly lent me his Flash McQueen remote controlled car – complete with cork stoppers his parents had added to the bumpers surely to prevent scratching walls and furniture.

I wanted a happy, more childlike Flash so I made the eyes and mouth a little surprised looking – this is how I would describe Philippe anyway – being far smarter than the average toddler he always seems to be waiting for something important to happen.

About the wheels – yes, yes, tires are the most important element on a car cake, but not when the model is dumbed down to the basics so I simply rolled out some black fondant and cut out disks, made 5 little white balls for each and flattened them on to the disks to make the wheel nuts.

I painted the Philippe and Bonne Fete with diluted black food colouring – but even with 8 hours of drying time – the words were still slick when I rested the cake on the table – Philippe immediately put his fingers in the paint and the tablecloth-staining festival began.