First of all I will start off saying that I have never had any formal training making cakes but I started my own business selling cakes and cake pops about a year ago called Princess Pops. I am a labor and delivery nurse working full time at Water Reed and teach Jazzercise part time. In my down time I look at YouTube to learn how to pipe, work with fondant etc. Someone had asked me to make a Topsy Turvy Alice in Wonderland cake. When she asked me I had never covered a cake with fondant or had I ever made a Topsy Turvy cake. I always love a challenge so I said I could do it.
Months before making the cake I would watch videos on how to cover a cake with fondant and how to make figurines out of fondant. I researched different ideas for cakes and took all those ideas and placed them into one cake. Baking the cake was difficult. I bought the Topsy Turvy pans and it took about an hour for the cake to bake all the way through. The 2nd tier I had to do over because I got a call from my oldest daughter asking for me to pick her up. When I came back one of the flower nails I had used to conduct heat got lost in the cake so I had to destroy the cake and bake another cake.
The fondant decorations on the cake took about a week to make. My husband and I both worked together so I could get most of the work done since I have little time with my busy schedule. He even surprised me by making some of the characters while I worked night shift at the hospital. When putting the cake together I first froze the cakes. Then I took an 8 inch cake board to the 12 inch cake and cut the top of the 12 inch cake slightly so the 8 inch cake could sit on top of the 12 inch cake without sliding. I used 4 bubble tea straws as supports for each cake. I covered the 12 inch cake with white fondant and used diamond shaped and heart shaped cookie cutters for the pattern for the bottom tier.
Then when I covered the 2nd tier I thought it would be easier since it was a smaller cake but I placed the fondant on the cake wrong. Instead of replacing it (like most people would do) I did my best to shift it as best as I could to where I wanted it to go. The top tier was made with rice krispy treats. I had asked my mother in law to make it while I was decorating and come to find out that she had never made rice krispy treats before. The marshmallows weren’t melting and find that she was trying to melt them over low heat when the directions said to melt them over high heat, but I couldn’t complain because she helped make the frosting and bake the second cake that I screwed up. I had her place the rice krispys in a bowl about the size I wanted for the teapot.
When it cooled I used my hands to shape it the way I wanted. When putting the whole cake together we had to use lots of toothpicks to secure the objects in place. Also the fondant decorations were large so It was hard to find space to place everything. The final product was a work of art that not only look good from the front but all the way around the cake.
Not only does the cake look great, but it tastes great as well! With the exception of six figurines, the entire cake is edible. The Catepillar and hookah, the March Hare, the Dormouse, the Cards, the Doorknob, the Cheshire Cat face, the flowers, the drink me/eat me items, and the entire Teapot top tier, to include the Ava charachter on top, were all edible!! This is an impressive cake!!
Not only does the cake look great, but it tastes great as well! With the exception of six figurines, the entire cake is edible. The Catepillar and hookah, the March Hare, the Dormouse, the Cards, the Doorknob, the Cheshire Cat face, the flowers, the drink me/eat me items, and the entire Teapot top tier, to include the Ava charachter on top, were all edible!! This is an impressive cake!!