I made this mini tea party cake for my father’s birthday. My father is not a bloke’s bloke. He loves going out for morning tea and the finer things in life! Also, I had been wanting to make some miniature fondant foods and play with creating a smaller gravity cake before graduating to a big gravity defying cake. I incorporated all of that into this birthday cake.
The tea set is made out of fondant, as well as the covering on the cake. I chose gluten free as my mother is celiac and I wanted her to be able to enjoy the cake too. I used a chocolate packet gluten free cake as I have not had much luck cooking my own gluten free cakes from scratch. This packet mix is really nice and you wouldn’t know by tasting it that it is GF. It tastes that good. That said, I do find it crumbly so it’s not a very good cake to carve. I only had a large rectangle tin so I cut cake into squares and sandwiched them together. I used a chocolate gluten free frosting mixture as I was worried that some cocoa powder might not being GF.
I made the teapot, flowers, cupcake stand, cups, milk jug and sugar pot 3 days in advance, 1 day should be ok, but I wanted them to be set properly. The teapot was the item that needed to be very set as it needed to hold together while being suspended. The other pieces I made on the day of the party and let them set for about an hour. The fondant I used was very flexible so I think using other brands would help the drying time.
- The teapot is gravity defying using a wire to pour it.
- I made the spout (2cm approx long) and put edible glue onto the wire.
- I fed a number 18# wire into the fondant and bent up a piece of the wire a little shorter then the spout at the bottom.
- I bent the wire at the top of the spout for the tea to pour down.
- Then, I made a 3cm round ball and pushed the wire with glue into it to hold it together, added a handle, top indent, and left to dry for 24 hours.
- Next, I added a stand at the bottom of the teapot, made the second tea cup and left to set for a few minutes.
- I added tea into the cup and pushed the brown fondant strip onto the wire and twisted till I was happy.
- I then pushed the end of the wire into the cup and let it set for an hour.
Once I was ready to finish the cake, I pushed the end of the wire into the cake, using edible glue to provide more support.
The cake was loads of fun to make and I’m hoping to experiment with more gravity defying cakes in the future.
