Miss Scarlet in the Hall with a Revolver

I'd recently been considering attempting decorating a cake, and had gone as far as getting some supplies and sketching out a simple design. Then I came across the Threadcakes competition and decided to throw all caution to the wind and decorate a fairly complex design! So I would ask you to be kind, as this is my first time I've decorated a cake.

There was no question about which t-shirt I'd base my design on. I'm such a big fan of all things detective, and Cluedo (or Clue, as it is known in the US) has been my favourite board game since I've been a child. I purchased the "Miss Scarlett" t-shirt as soon as I became aware of it and it holds a privileged place in my wardrobe! Instead of replicating the t-shirt design on the cake, I decided to recreate the Cluedo board and make the appropriate game pieces and cards. While the Cluedo board designs have changed over the years, I used the one I grew up with, which is of simpler design than the Cluedo boards available today.

To begin with, I baked a large chocolate cake, and shaped and levelled it when it was cooled. I added a crumb coat of buttercream and let it dry overnight. The next day, I iced it with buttercream, and coloured my fondant. I rolled out a large piece of green fondant to act as the base of the board, and cut out the yellow game board with the help of a stencil I’d made of the real Cluedo board. I pressed a ruler lightly into the yellow fondant, to create the appearance of squares on the board. I used the stencil to cut out the shapes of each of the rooms in grey fondant, and glued them onto the board.

As I wasn’t sure if my piping skills were up to scratch, I made stencils for the room labels by cutting out the letters with an x-acto knife. I then used an edible icing pen to blot the letters onto each room. I piped the outlines of the rooms with brown buttercream icing, making sure to leave gaps at appropriate intervals as per the actual Cluedo board. I used buttercream to pipe in the remaining details on the board, including the red circles to indicate player starting locations, white highlights in the centre and in the rooms, and yellow arrows to indicate where the secret passages were.

Once the board was finished, it was a matter of adding some game pieces and other details. I decided to replicate the relevant playing cards, and used the technique of reverse buttercream transfer to add the artwork on each of the cards. I scanned in the Cluedo cards, reversed the images (so they’d be the right way when I flipped them over), placed them underneath a sheet of wax paper and piped the design over the top. When I’d piped the three designs, I put them in the freezer overnight. I cut out three squares of fondant to act as the actual cards and painted them black using gel colour. I figured it was easier to paint them than try and colour the (white) fondant black!

The next day, I carefully peeled the buttercream designs off the wax paper and pressed them gently onto the black fondant cards. I shaped a little Miss Scarlet game piece and a dice out of red fondant, and a stylised revolver out of fondant, which I then painted black (the game piece itself is silver, but I wanted it to stand out against the game board). Then all I had to do was assemble all the pieces on the game board! I put the Miss Scarlett and revolver game pieces in the Hall, of course, and fanned out the cards. Not wanting to cut into the Hall, the scene of so much activity in this Cluedo game, I cut into the Ballroom to taste the cake. My partner was quick to volunteer to taste the cake, and we both agreed that it was chocolate-y, moist and delicious!

I estimate this cake took me about 12 hours in total, spread out over a few days, but I worked quite slowly given it was the first time I’d done anything like this. I’m pretty pleased with how it came out, and have learned a lot of good techniques I can apply to cake decorating in the future!