I made this Farm Birthday Cake for my son’s 2nd birthday, he loves farm animals and I thought this might be the simplest way of doing it. I made two 11 inch square cakes just using a basic Victoria sponge recipe and sandwiched them together using butter icing. I iced all over the cake with butter icing and then with sugarpaste (fondant/roll out icing) coloured with Sugarflair ‘Christmas green’.
The barn is a 9 inch square cake cut into quarters, 3 of which I stacked with butter icing and the last quarter I cut into 4 triangles and stuck them together with butter icing to form the roof. I covered the whole barn shape with butter icing and then with sugarpaste. I used a sharp knife to mark the wood pattern for the walls and the thatch pattern for the roof and stuck them on as 4 separate square walls and then the roof.
The barn was set on a thin card of the same size and then supported with wooden sticks pushed into the base cake (I used the little wooden chopsticks you get free with sushi packs cut to size). The animals I made a couple of days before out of pre coloured sugarpaste, the horses’ mane and tail was made using an extruder tool I got cheaply off eBay. The animals heads and legs were supported using dried spaghetti (I thought this was a safer option than toothpicks for the small children) also I put little balls of screwed up foil under the heads to hold them up until they had set (this did leave slight marks though so I would maybe use cling film next time). I stored them in an old biscuit tin as someone told me they would sweat in a plastic container which they did as I stored the leftover cake in one after the party and they went all squishy again.
The grass was made with the extruder tool as was the hay bale and the little flowers were a clover shaped end on the extruder cut up into little bits. The fence is sugarpaste rolled out and cut into strips stuck on with water. I stuck the animals onto the cake with icing (icing sugar with just enough water to make a paste). I wasn’t sure how it would turn out but my little boy certainly loved it so I was very happy with the result.
This is a truly beautiful cake! I am planning a barn-themed party for my boy (turning 1) next weekend – it is uncanny that I had my idea so similar to your own cake! – I was also planning the base cake with the barn on top – a BIG THANKS for the tip about using a base sheet + support dowels for the barn – I am using buttercream icing so I was very concerned about the barn ‘sinking away’ into the base cake! I hope you won’t mind, if I also ‘borrow’ your idea of the duck-pond ;) a little blue in the barnyard will brighten it up just beautifully!