The Sleeping Death

I wanted to kick off Threadcakes this year with something fondant-free, since you don't see that too much anymore. I picked this design because it was the right degree of complicated and sinister for my liking, and I realised it was something I could pull off with buttercream and piping gel.

So first I baked a single-layer vanilla sponge, and used a printout of the design as a carving template. Next I covered the whole thing in white buttercream and let it set. Then I used chocolate buttercream tinted black to do a frozen buttercream transfer outline. Once the outline was on the cake, I went over it again in more black, and put the whole thing in the fridge to firm up.

Next, I started portioning out piping gel, and diluted it with some water. I put a good amount of clear gel into a piping bag, and put the rest on a palette so that I could tint it. I started with the lighter areas, piping in the clear gel, and then adding the coloured gel, mixing it in with a cocktail stick to get the effect found in the original design. The darker areas required large amounts of the coloured gel, and in the case of the purple zones, a little icing sugar to get the right colour.

Once it was all done, I realised my board was very boring looking, so I continued the stained glass theme there, and piped out some more stained glass panels. The next step was to feed it to an unsuspecting public. I'm not going to say that a mouthful of piping gel is the best way to eat a cake, but fortunately the goodness of homemade sponge and buttercream made up for it