How would I go about making a cake in the shape of Roary the Racing Car?

[spicemonster]

I know how to make cakes but have never tried anything like this. Do you have to get special icing? Is it absurd of me to even try? I'm quite artistic but that's the only thing I've got going really

You want CoV, really, but I reckon (having just googled said racing car) - firmish sponge - like a genoese, then ready coloured roll-out fondant icing. Cut square cake into rough shapes, and then lightly carve edge to get right shape. Think you may need to brush the cake with warmed apricot jam to get the icing to stick. Buy liquorice allsorts or pref those big liquorice wheels.

Habbibu - you don't know Roary? You lucky woman!

That is very helpful ta. Where do you get fondant icing? I have got a really good cake/party shop near me.

Liquorice wheels is a brilliant idea

Um - think you can get in in Tesco, but the cake/party shop is a better bet. It'll usually be called ready-to-roll. If you can't get the colour you want, get some colouring paste and use it on white icing.

We are in Pingu mode, atm. I considered a cake in the shape of Pingu, but (a) I'm only good at the theory of cake decorating and (b) the idea of that much black icing was difficult to stomach.

If you buy white fondant icing from Tesco or Asda or wherever, whatever you do don't colour it using liquid food colours!!!! Get paste ones or you'll end up looking like you've had a run in with several multi coloured, very angry, biros like I did the other week!

I'd try the party/cake shop as they'll probably sell it ready coloured which is miles easier!

Useful tip re liquid food colour ta! Luckily he is only 3 colours - black white and red so only need black and red really. Is it a bit minging to have a largely red cake though?

not if it looks like roary, I wouldn't have thought so, he's meant t be like that. Just try & roll the icing quite thinly as it's very sweet & sickly after a while

So the thing to do is to try and make a cake in the shape of roary and then just cover it in a thin layer of icing? I was thinking of building up the shape with the icing but now I see that would be revolting! Perhaps I'll just make the number 2 instead

pretty much yeah. build the shape, smother in buttercream icing (yum!) & then ice with a thin layer of coloured icing.

I would have thought if you carve the rough shape like Habbibu suggested then the buttercream would make it smoother & more car like. Building the shape with the icing isn't a bad idea but the icing really is very sweet so if you did that I would take out the biult up bits before serving, as you cut it.

I'm not very experienced, just talking from having made some icing animals the other week that ended up not getting eaten they were so sweet & I looked like I'd had a row with the biros after colouring it all

or you could go for the non arty mother version

bake a normal victoria sponge... ice it with ready to roll fondant icing and buy a roary the racing car icing topper from ebay

does quite a good job.. well my ds (3) was happy with it

i did a 'lightning macqueen' one last year for ds2, as others have suggested also, i did buttercream all over it, then coloured ready-to-roll icing and a traced pic of the car will stick it on my profile if it helps?

and am impressed at all of you who are willing to make a car-shaped cake

I'd like a look gigglewitch, I like Cars!

its on profile now.
nothing clever, don't start getting your hopes up!!

frasersmummy - that's a very good idea and I might end up doing that

gigglewitch - yes, if you would that would be really helpful

I think it is time for me to confess that my sister makes completely brilliant cakes for my nephew so I feel obliged to do the same. Plus my mum said she would do the cake as I am too busy so I feel honour-bound to deliver a gasp-worthy cake.

Pathetic isn't it?

(obviously I am quite thrilled at the idea of making a cake that my DS would be excited about too but as he doesn't get cake much, he wouldn't care one way or the other to be honest)

Lakeland do these shaped tins but they're a but pricey.www.lakeland.co.uk/car-cake-pan/F/keyword/cake+tin/product/12338
There's also a tractor and a pirate ship...

That's great gigglewitch! Sorry, don't quite understand how you did it

Could you explain slowly please?

I did a maka paka cake for DS year before last. I found some pictures of him online and printed them out...then traced a basic maka paka shape from that that could be cut into templates. I made a basic chocolate cake mix spread over 4 sandwich tins and cut them into the shapes using the templates. Then used really mixed fondant icing with colouring added to cover it & add features like the face etc.

Ah - terramum, that's a good idea. So I do a 2D cake rather than a 3D one? That would be a lot easier. It's the 3D-ness of Roary that's freaking me out tbh - he has loads of complicated bits (although I don't suppose my DS will complain if I miss a bit off). But also I don't really like fondant icing very much. Presumably if I did it like that, I could make it in butter icing?

I like him! I think she amay have made a cake, iced with buttercream. rolled out the coloured icing, traced round the picture of Lightening McQueen & stuck him on top of the iced cake & added the other features with different oloured icing maybe. I think that would work well, might make one myself just to try it out when I've done my sil's playboy bunny

I should think butter icing would work...presuming you're ok at smoothing it out (I'm not LOL...hence the fondant!)

BTW - Icing was from tesco and colouring was from hobby craft - they do a good set with all the basic colours in them. ...and we put the cake on a spare piece of plywood covered in foil as it was a bit bigger than my chopping board when finished LOL

I'm good at the smoothing bit - knife in hot water! If it looks remotely good, I will post a photo (if it's crap, I'll slink away and hope none of you remember this thread )

lol spice, we'll be checking up on your progress

right. my botch-it guide
make big cake. plain sponge or whatever.
get some of this icing, it is in most supermarkets and isn't expensive (am a cheapskate)
slap butter icing all over cake (marg and icing sugar)
trace a pic of the car you are wanting to copy - onto greaseproof paper, image such as this printed on to A4 paper - bog standard stuff
when you have the image on your tracing paper, roll out red icing, and place the tracing paper on top. get a small veg knife or similar and cut out the car shape - through both greaseproof and icing.
add bits like windscreen, wheels, numbers etc in a similar fashion using other colours of roll-out coloured icing.
place it on the cake, may need a bit of water brushed on to hold the 'bits' eg headlights on to the body of the car.
Job done.
(sorry for delay in posting back, ds2 up, had big nosebleed)

ebay currently has a roary edible icing picture....here if you scroll down - edible cake topper and also serviettes.....

BUMP!

Thanks to gigglewitch's marvellous instructions, I have made a cake (on my profile). It's a bit skew as that royal icing stuff stretched rather a lot more than I was bargaining on but for my first attempt I am quite pleased. And I am hoping it's a reasonable enough likeness for my DS to recognise it's Roary

Whether it tastes any good is another matter. Luckily it's my mum's birthday the next day and my sister (who is an expert cake maker) is making her a cake so we have that

Thank you so much gigglewitch - I honestly wouldn't have known where to begin