Sugar craft or cake decorating experts please help! Fire engine cake

[boogiewoogie]

I'm going to have a go at making a fire engine cake for my ds's birthday. I'm baking a square sponge cake tonight then cutting it in half to layer with butter icing and jam.

Now, will it start falling apart when I put the roll out icing on top? How do I make the red sugar paste stick to it?

Also, I can't find matchmakers anywhere for the ladder and hose. Will I be able just to pipe them on the red icing and wil they stick to it?

Thanks

You need to coat it with buttercream before putting the sugarpaste on.

Unless it is very fragile sponge it will be fine.

Spread the surface with a thin layer of jam - it helps the icing stick and stops crumbs 'leaking' through.

Piping will stick onto sugar paste fine - or you could get those strawberry string things for the hose? To make anything like that stick you can either just dampen the sugar paste or make 'glue' by mashing scraps of sugar paste with a tiny bit of water.

Our local tesco has matchmakers in the reduced-from-Christmas section ATM.

HTH

x-post - or buttercream - come to think of it, better buttercream as it is a lot less messy.

Okay, will do that. Will piped items stick on top of each other or will I need a dab of butter icing for that too?

Also, does black food colouring turn icing grey or black? I know that might sound like a stupid question but it's a well known fact that red colouring turns icing pink so following that logic....

If you use paste colouring it will turn it black. If you use liquid it will turn it grey.

Piped things should stick on top of each other, I would have thought - see my comment about sugar glue if you have any problems.

black food colouring does indeed turn icing grey.

Use paste colours if at all possible and my top tip would be to make chocolate icing first (add cocoa) and only when it is nice and dark brown do you add the black colouring. Then let it stand (appropriately sealed) - for some strange reason black colour deepens over a few hours, so I always colour moulding icing black the day before I need it IYSWIM.

Hi. I made a fire-engine cake for Ds 3rd birthday last year. Used a liquorice wheel (the one with the liquorice allsort in the middle) for the hose pipe on the side of the fire engine.
Also unrolled one and used that to make a ladder on the top.
I bought ready coloured icing - lazy, but so much easier

Hello,
Thanks everyone for the comments. I've now made the cake and although I'm not about to set up a cake decorating business, I'm very pleased with the results and can't wait for ds's reaction tomorrow. I've also uploaded the photo!

fab cake boogiewoogie, well done!

Fab cake! have you got a photo of your DS that you can stick in the windscreen?? I made a similar one for DS's 4th b'day and added number plates that read 'James4'.

Good idea sniffyhock! There's a spare photo somewhere.