Cake Decorating - Problem- Help!

[EnormousChangesAtTheLastMinute]

i am trying to decorate a cake in the shape of a number one for my dd's birthday. cake out of oven and cooling, so far so good. BUT i have no idea how to get marzipan and rolled icing on smooothly as it's such an awkward shape with lots of corners... Should i cut template and do top and sides separately (won't the join show?) or try to do it in one piece and smooth out pleats and folds (if so - how? i have a smoothing tool thingy). Is there a mumsnet cake decorating expert who can help? I have scoured internet but seems to say i should royal ice it but that won't give smooth finish i want...

oooh tricky. why do you want a smooth finish?
be much easier to cut separate bits of marzipan and cover that way and then put a differnt kind of icing over the top so the joins don't show. if yr set on a smooth finish, i'd cut separate bits of marzipan and fix them on, then roll out one piece of icing and smooth out pleats etc.
good luck, let me know how it turns out.

oh good question - because if there is a hard way or an easy way to do something i'll take the hard way every time. honestly. i've never done this before and am insisting on a madly perfect finish. i think i'll cut the marzipan as you suggest and then either try to smooth the icing or bottle it and do royal... thanks for help - and good to know it IS tricky and not me being dim! I'll let you know...

I like the rustic look to my cakes. I make the icing (or melt the chocolate) pour it over and then dust with icing sugar if it looks pants!

I made DD2 a birthday cake and the blooming thing collapsed as I was assembling it. So I covered it with chocolate butter icing, sprinkled icing sugar over it and all the girls said it was the best cake that they had ever seen. They loved the fact that they were eating a volcano Oh the shame!

well, between you and me [looks round checking for grandparents] the dog has eaten a bit off one corner. it came out of the oven so perfect...i was so pleased... but she's been really ill and on steroids and has become utterly food obsessed - she managed to get paws onto table and somehow took a sideways nibble before i saw her. oh the shame . i'm not so ashamed i'll start again of course [brazen emoticon]. it's only a teeny weeny corner... honest so it's not exactly textbook before i even get to the icing...
(actually, it adds a little something. everyone will be complimenting me on homebaking a cake - no matter how it turns out - but I'll have a dirty little secret. ha ha ha)

yes of course you get triple points for baking the cake yourself in the first place. icing gets extra points and marzipan and icing doubles that. so you're well up.
i made and iced 175 fairy cakes for my SIL's christening of her 2 sons last weekend for the congregation to eat. they all disappeared within seconds happily, but afterwards someone mentioned that they 'thought they had been made by the children's church'... oh well. at least the folk enjoyed them.

keep me posted how the cake turns out

175?! wow. that's a serious workload. it's taken me until five minutes ago to make one cake and enough biscuit letters to spell 'happy birtday'. guess i'll do the missing 'h' tomorrow! how on earth did you manage to bake and decorate them all?! blimey...

When you put the marzipan on, do all th sides first and then the top.

Best to stick it all on with apricot jam, mix jam first to make it quite runny.

Leave marzipan to harden, before putting on royal icing.

You're supposed to put the icing on in layers to get a smooth coat.

Use a flat palette knife and dip it in warm water as this helps to spread it on.

Don't forget to fill in the hole made by the dog!!!!!

Bit of marzipan should do the trick!!!!

ok, will do top first. will have to do it tomorrow lunchtime when dd napping and then ice cake in the evening - hope marzipan will be dry enough. i know you're meant to leave it longer than that but i'm out of time!
it's a 'me too' style race against the clock. 'where did the time go?'...
if only i hadn't invited grandparents to tea, dd would be none the wiser if, just this once, her birthday happened a couple of days late to accommodate the cake arrangements...

Noooo, do the sides first.

All kids want is to blow out the candles and sit and play with wrapping paper and boxes!!!!

It's the guests that we're trying to impress!!!!

If you'd made a sponge cake you could've just done butter icing.

thank goodness i checked in before i started. right. SIDES FIRST then the top. gulp. wish me luck...

how'd it turn out EnormousChanges?

well, it's ok, i think. not bad for a first attempt! now i realise how difficult it is i'm quite happy with it. there is one bit which is a tad patchy but i was having real icing problems - it kept sticking to the work surface - so it was just the best i could do. will attempt to do a pic...and you must tell me what you think - honestly! - i aim for a year on year improvement and reckon i might have the hang of it by the time dd is 21!

Well done for trying.

Can't wait to see photo!!!!

Enjoy!!!

ditto fussymummy. top marks for trying. would love to see picture

put photo on profiles under 'my first birthday cake'. didn't expect any responses but lots of mnetters have been very generous about it - which is lovely and cheered me up when the alphabet biscuits went wrong (poor icing bag construction...). still, tea went well and dd remained in sunny mood despite only 30 mins nap all day. phew. we got through the first year!