In the Night Garden Birthday Cake

My son is a fan of In the Night Garden, the British TV programme aimed at toddlers and pre-schoolers.  His sister watches it occassionally but it was when she got the Makka Pakka plush toy that sings and talks that he really started taking an interest.  So it was a bit of a no-brainer when it came the time for me to think about what kind of a cake to make for him for his 1st birthday a week ago.

I saw some cakes online where they created the characters out of gum paste.  They look like the real thing but I was going for an "OMIGOD!  That's Igglepiggle."  Perhaps I was in doubt of my abilities to get Upsy Daisy's face colour right or contemplating how I would get Iggle Piggle's blanket to fall just so.  It could also be the stark reality that I would have no time to complete the characters as they would need at least 24-48 hours to properly dry out and I only had 4 days to make and bake (at the same time complete 2 orders the day before the party) and prepare for the party.  So I thought, "Nah!". 

That's why when I was in Sydney in October, I bought the figurines from Toys R Us.  Easy.  So now it was left to me to create the scenery.  I had to make the gazebo first.  I was about to go to Australia for 2 weeks and when I got back I had only days to fulfill my cake orders, bake and decorate Zac's cake and prepare for the party.  I had no time to make the Magic Gazebo which will take days to dry out.

Iggle Piggle and Makka Pakka wave Bye Bye.

I thought about how to make the top of the gazebo as it would be challenging.  I considered using fondant and make it into gumpaste but it seemed like a waste of good fondant.  No one was going to eat it and I wanted it as a keepsake (we'll see how long that will last after a couple of home moves) too.  I got the idea to use Rice Krispies made into treats from watching Cake Boss.  Buddy goes on about how he uses rice krispies/cereal to mould the larger and more complicated figures.  

A good friend of mine, gave me a box of rice krispies not long ago and told me that you just melted marshmallows to mix with the rice krispies and that's how you get rice krispy treats.  The box also had the instructions on the side.  Bing!

I just love the colour combination on Upsy Daisy.

Melting the marshmallows was... interesting.  I wasn't sure what exactly it was supposed to look like cos it was mostly soft and stuck to the bottom of the pan.  It didn't get liquidy or gooey just smeared in a soft form.  I chucked the rice krispies in just when I thought I was about to burn the marshmallows if I left it in there any longer stirring or not.  It came together in the end.  It was pretty hot to handle as I was molding it but I wanted to shape it before it got too cool and hardened.

Tomliboo Oo, Tomliboo Un and Tomliboo Ee out having some fun!

I scraped the rest of the leftovers out from the bottom of the pan and my husband was quite happy to munch on that.  I had to soak the pan overnight to get all the marshmallows out.  After I shaped the top of the gazebo, I stuck a toothpick into the top to add the round white ball that adorns the top.  Then I cut the pieces of blue and yellow fondant that covers the gazebo.  To hold up the top of the gazebo, I wrapped long toothpicks with blue fondant which I left out to dry but not before marking on both the base and the top where they would fit in.  This was important as the top of the gazebo would be extremely hard to pierce after the rice krispies hardened.

The base of the magic gazebo was just made from gum paste as it was quite thin.  I was really happy with the results as the dimensions were about right for the cake and Iggle Piggle who shared the top tier of the cake with Makka Pakka.

I also added some daisies and blossoms which are in the show as well as the little balls of flowers that dot around the landscape in the garden.  These were gum paste balls covered with Tylo (edible glue made from water + CMC powder) then rolled in coloured sugar.  Here's what it looks like in the show:

This is a close up of the flowers balls I made with coloured sugar:

The cake had serious chocolate flavour. I first tasted it a year ago from my friend W who made a delicious birthday cake for her daughter.  She gave me the recipe which she got from Allrecipes.com.  I made it for my Dad in May and after the first mouthful he said, "This is too much chocolate!" and guess what the name of the cake is: Too Much Chocolate Cake!  Hee hee hee.  Oh but it's soooo good though.  Think of a Devil's Food cake plus chocolate pudding (Jell-O) and chocolate chips.  Deep, dark and intense.  The kids were on a sugar rush for hours after!  Here's the recipe.  I added Chocolate Cream Cheese frosting between the layers to add that little bit of tartness to cut through the heaviness of the chocolate.  A match made in heaven.