Royal icing cake advice please!

[polarpercy]

I'm a relatively competent cook but I don't really bake many elaborate cakes because until last year it had only been me and my husband, and he was always happy with a chocolate cake with chocolate and a bit more chocolate!

But it's our daughter's first birthday soon and I wanted to make her a cake with royal icing animals on top and around the sides. I was just after a bit of advice about:

• will a basic sponge and jam cake be the best 'base' for this or should I do something more dense?
• are there any particular tips and tricks for colouring icing and how far in advance can I do it?
• Is assembly best left to the last minute?
• any other hints from cake makers. I've seen the posting pics thread and the cakes on there are amazing!

Thank you in advance for any help/advice

Actually I think I meant fondant icing! Is that better/more appropriate to shape?

Hi, I would use a slightly more dense recipe, I always use the BBC easy vanilla cake for my cakes. I would make the fondant animals at least a few dats in advance, I made a Guns n Roses cake topper at the weekend for tomorrow night. I just mixed it with some tylo powder first. I use pastes to colour my icing because they are so much better than the liquids you get in the supermarkets, colours are better and you don't need to use as much, I get Sugarflair ones from EBay. I always wear gloves and build the colour up - it's easy to add more! One colour I do tend to buy ready made is black though! You can get coloured icing in Sainsburys and Asda. If I'm attaching figures to a cake I tend to use BBQ skewers for stability as well. Good luck!

Thank you ever so much! I'll give your advice a go, I think I will definitely need gloves!

Would you say that fondant icing would be better for making shapes than royal icing then?

Thank you again for taking the time to answer

No problem, I've got a pack of disposable gloves just for this! Yes I would definitely use fondant icing, think of it like modelling plasticine into shapes!

Im not on my phone so can link, this is the cake recipe I use but I dont tend to do the syrup, its never let me down!

I've attached a picture of my last cake, all the paint tubes and brush are made with fondant icing.

Wow! That's beautiful. Thank you again for your help and advice, I feel more confident now! Will definitely use fondant.

Aw thank you, Im not a professional by any manner of means just love doing the cakes! One more thing if you want bits to stick together, I use edible glue but water works to!

I've found that its better to buy brighter coloured fondant as even with gel colouring its hard to get really bright colours. Its more expensive but if you're not planning on making cakes regularly then might work out cheaper than buying the gel colours and white fondant.

I use a light dusting of corn flour to roll the icing out on as it doesn't go sticky like icing sugar. It can be brushed off the surface of the cake at the end if needed. Its easier to clean off the worktop as well.

Crazykat lve only recently started to use corn flour and I can't believe the difference it makes!

Brilliant, thank you crazykat (and Tinkerball for the patience in answering my many questions!) will give that a go, hadn't realised about corn flour and probably wouldn't have thought of that!