Totoro Cake - the first cake I made! - となりのトトロのケーキ

UPDATE! I have now started my own cake making company! Please visit my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/CustomCakeStudio and give it a like! :-)

This is the first cake that I ever made! It was a chocolate sponge cake with vanilla buttercream and then rolled fondant on top. The whiskers were made from liquorice which I just cut up into the right shape:

To make sure that he looked right I printed a picture of him out on A3 paper which I then stuck to card (a cereal box!) and cut out. I had baked two chocolate sponge cakes, one was square and one was round (I forget the size of them now...) and I put them together onto a chopping board and then laid my template on top. I cut round the main shape and then places both parts onto the cake board (making sure I stuck them down with a little buttercream).

Then I covered the whole cake with buttercream and got my rolled icing ready. I used white icing and black food colouring (the paste kind, not the liquid) to make grey although I didn't realise how long it would take to kneed the colour through! My hands certainly got a work-out!

Then I covered the whole cake with the grey rolled icing. To make sure I got the white shape correct for his tummy I went back to my cardboard template and cut the tummy out, and then used this as my template for cutting out the white rolled icing. To stick the white icing onto the grey I used a tiny amount of water.

Next came some green food colouring and a little white rolled fondant to make the leaf on top of his head. Then I cut out the eyes and the grey bits for the detail on the stomach. The worst part was actually the nose as I had to use so much food colouring to get the white fondant a proper black colour (and not just grey) so it was really wet and when I stuck it onto the cake I ended up getting a bit of liquid which tried to run down the cake! I quickly sorted this out with some kitchen roll, but it left a shiny spot above the nose.

UPDATE! I have now made Rice Krispie Totoro's! See them here! With step-by-step instructions!