My daughter loves Nancy Drew books and wanted a homemade Nancy Drew book mystery cake for her 10th birthday.
The book cake itself was easy enough to make. I stacked 2 sheet cakes and carved one edge just a little to make it slightly rounded. I then frosted it with buttercream icing and covered it with marshmallow fondant dyed yellow to match her actual books. I couldn’t get one sheet of fondant large enough to cover the entire cake so I covered just the top with one sheet and then another bit along the spine. To cover the crease where the fondant met I rolled a small “snake” of fondant and placed it over the crease. It actually helped to create the look of the spine.
I used white fondant for the pages and lightly pressed some lines into the fondant to appear as pages. I ordered an edible photo of my daughter in her Nancy Drew Costume from Halloween and used that as the cover art. Since I’m a glutton for punishment I decided to sculpt a flashlight and magnifying glass out of modeling chocolate. For the glass in each I made some peppermint hard candy. I made an indentation in the chocolate of each item and carefully placed the “glass” in the grooves. It worked perfectly!
I created a mini figure of my daughter out of the leftover fondant. I also made a mini magnifying glass out of the leftover modeling chocolate and a small piece of cracked candy for her to hold. Last, I made a library card out of fondant (let it dry for 3 days) and edible markers. This homemade Nancy Drew book mystery cake took some time but it was well worth it and both my daughter and I were pleased with the results.
I love Nancy Drew and its so neat to see your cake! Very smart and creative, just like Nancy herself :)