A Toopy and Binoo birthday!

When I was asked to make a Toopy and Binoo cake, I must admit that I had to Google the characters to find out what they were. When I discovered how cute they were, I eagerly accepted the challenge. 

This birthday cake was for a 3 year old boy. I was given a few pictures as ideas but I was also told to put my own spin on it for an original creation. I wanted the cake to be fun and colourful like the show. I did some research by watching clips on YouTube. I saw a jungle theme, clouds, bubbles, island themes, you name it, but I could not find anything that would inspire a birthday cake. I then came across a DVD cover for an episode called Binoo's birthday. Perfect! It was colourful, there were streamers and bubbles and stars.

The characters are made from modelling paste made with fondant and tylose. Details are painted on with petal dust (powder food colouring) either dry or mixed with a little vodka. I also use edible marker for some of the details.

I was asked to make a cake with Toopy and Binoo on it but as I was making it, I felt that it wouldn't be complete without also including Patchy Patch (Binoo's plush doll companion).

I made the streamers using gumpaste. The number '3' is made from modelling paste. I find that it is easier to work with to create a nice number (the gumpaste dries too fast). You just have to ensure that you leave  enough time for the number to set.

Both the twisted rope border and bubble border are made with modelling paste. For the bubbles, I tinted the paste with a hint of blue colouring and also finished them with lustre dust for a bit of sheen.

The cake is chocolate filled with chocolate swiss meringue buttercream and crumb coated and masked in vanilla. This cake took quite a few hours to make and along the way I did have my doubts as to whether the colours would go well together, especially after I had covered the cakes in their respective colours and they were sitting side by side without any decoration. It all came together in the end and I was really happy with the finished product. It was bright, colourful and fun just as I had hoped it would be.