The Ducati Cake

 

The people who order from me tend to find me after finding my blog through Google, so when K wrote to me to request a cake for her boyfriend as a surprise a couple of weeks back, I was ready to rock and roll.  At first she was had ideas to either do cupcakes or cakes and with either a Ferrari or Ducati bike element.  I was very happy to make a car out of fondant to add as a topper to the cupcakes or a cake, but was very very very hesitant about the bike as it involved a lot of detail.  Detail = time, and I didnt normally have that much time since I didn't have that many days to work on it.

K was quite excited about the idea of the Ducati because her boyfriend loves them and she was very persuasive.  She sent me many photos and at one point even asked for just the bike to be drawn on top with icing.  They were all good ideas but I was just conscious about time as I needed to make the bike and give it at least a day or two to dry.  In the end, I ran with the idea to make a small 3D bike to place on top of the cake in a road scene.

A road made of chocolate cookie crumbs.  If only there were real roads like these!  Wonka's Chocolate factory maybe?

The bike took ages... I think I started at 11pm and finished it at 2am.  My eyes were quite dry and vision was going wonky at this point so I decided to leave the glossing of the bike till the next morning.  The cake itself was a Vanilla cake with whipped chocolate ganache in between the layers.  I used Vanilla buttercream for the icing.  I particularly like the colour of this grass as it reminds me of the colour of the countryside in the UK.  I also made the post out of fondant.

The road sign says "Route Thirty-Six"

By the next morning, the bike was firm but you could still make a dent in it if you held it too hard.  I went over the red parts with some piping gel from Wilton to give it that nice sheen and let it dry.  I had in mind to make the road out of chocolate biscuits/Oreos and my daughter was very happy to help me pound the biscuits to crumbs. I was really afraid the bike would fall over during transport so I just stuck the toothpicks which held the bike in place into the cake first and packed the bike in a separate box, bubble wrapped thrice over to be safe.  I think I would have cried if anything happened to that bike.

I used one of my kid's toy's packaging to cut the shape for the glass screen for the bike.

 I think the boyfriend was happy with the surprise cake, and hopefully the bike is now sitting on his shelf.