A Jewellery Box Cake- need Help with making the cover

barrigone

Hi, im making a jewellery box cake for my daughter's birthday this weekend. Can anybody tell me the best way to make the cover for it. Want to make something like picture above though i know i'll never achieve this standard? Any help would be great, thanks

littleredspot

Welcome to the world of cake decorating! I'm not sure what they've used in the photo, I would of guessed pastillage but its very shiney.
The simplest thing would be to use a thin cake card/board (the ones that are about 3mm thick) the same size as your cake. You could cover it in sugarpaste. Then support it with wooden or plastic dowels, about 5mm diameter (You can often get these from a butchers)

Good luck

Acoshla

Hiya,

Did you want to make the cover (the lid yeah?) out of something edible or non edible? If I was making that I'd probably make it out of pastillage, which dries very hard and is quite durable once dry. I've used it to make an open laptop screen before which would be similar size and shape to the lid and had no problems with it...well, after the first one broke I had no problems with the second!

If you wanted to go for something non edible I'd say cover some thin card in fondant icing, I've never done that so I don't have any great advice on it but I know it is used as a technique for shapes like that too.

barrigone

thanks for help ladies
yes i want to make edible one if possible. the one in the picture they made with chocolate, it said but id be afraid that it would break. i will try to find the pastillage -any help with where i could get it in limerick area?

littleredspot

barrigone wrote: »

thanks for help ladies

Ahem.......:eek:

Anyway chocolate would probably be easier than making pastillage and would certainly be tastier! As long as you make the chocolate thick enough it wouldn't break, then when its set, bore little indentations in the underside to take the skewers. White chocolate would be nice.

Acoshla

I think you can buy pastillage in powder form but I always make my own, it's really easy.

barrigone

oops very sorry for offending you..

so fellow bakers;) thanks, will try choc out tonight and if not i'll make pastillage.

spadina, would it be ok to ask for a recipe ?thanks if so

DreamC

If you temper chocolate properly, make the lid thicker and let it set really well before handling it would not break. If you use pastillage you'll have to dry it for several days (on one side and then turn it over and dry again). Pastillage is rock hard when it is dried completely but would be easily broken when it is still semi-dry. And witj our wet weather I myself would go for white chocolate.

barrigone

Thanks DreamC.
Just ordered white chocolate from pallas foods, will collect tonight so i can test.
Will let ye know how the cake goes after weekend, thanks again

Acoshla

I don't find pastillage that fragile at all, once it's past the initial few hours of drying, and if it's made thick enough which still isn't very thick. I have a few different recipes I use, but if you google it you'll get loads anyway.

Edit: Just saw you're going for chocolate, ignore this post!

barrigone

Said id show ye my very poor attempt at the jewellery box. I forgot about the outside so ended up with different colour on it and the front part is very shabby mainly as i ran out of time. It tasted lovely though as i made a carrot cake as the base -yum!

Eviledna

That looks really cool!! I bet the birthday girl loved it!

Nice touch with the cupcake ballerina, did you sacrifice a real jewellery box for it?

barrigone

Thanks took so long to make. I used the chocolate for the lid in the end, wrked great except it was so thick, its still at home, not eaten. Also the base under the sections is another layer of chocolate(again not eaten) so next time i'll make it a little lighter
Got a loan of jewellery lady from my cousin