Product Review

Rose Macefield shares her trade secrets and incredible design flair in this step-by-step guide to sculpting and decorating show-stopping novelty cakes. Beginning with the readily available sugarcrafting tools and materials required, she goes on to provide recipes for cakes, buttercream and royal icing. Learn how to level, stack, slice through and buttercream the cakes, and support their structure where required with dowels and cake boards. Rose shows how to sculpt shapes freehand or using templates, then how to cover a cake board and various shapes of sculpted cake with fondant (sugarpaste), and how to decorate the result with a variety of techniques including marbling, using a clay gun, airbrushing, modelling shapes and adding texture. Nine breathtaking projects are clearly explained with step-by-step photographs: a shitsu show dog, a rocker's electric guitar, a one-eyed messy monster creating havoc, a teenage girl's fashion sneakers with make up and other mess, a fisherman's basket and rod with fish resting on pebbles, a tennis bag, racket and ball on court, a baker's mixer, ingredients and cookies, a toy train and alphabet blocks on a wooden floor and a craft box with sewing equipment, fabric and lace spilling out. Rose's attention to detail is extraordinary and her sense of humour a delight, yet everything is simple to make with her clear instructions.