So back in June I made a cake for a Cheese Lover. You can't really call it a 'Cheese Lover's Dream' as it's more like 'A Cheese Lover's Nightmare' to find their cheese full of mice!
It was actually a lot of fun to make once the sugarpaste was on (it was a little tricky to cover the cut out bit in the middle of the cake without tearing it). I cut out a small triangle from the main cake then covered this and placed on top like a slice of cheese.
I haven't made mice before but they are surprisingly easy to make. Here is what you'll need;
1 Large egg shape piece of modelling paste - body
1 Small egg shape - head
4 sausage shapes - arms and legs (shape them to give hands & feet and mark lines with a craft knife)
2 teardrop shapes - ears (flatten then cup slightly with a ball tool)
2 pink small teardrop shapes - inner ear (flatten then cup slightly with a ball tool)
1 long sausage - tail
Then you just need to stick them all together with edible glue, add a small teardrop for the nose and small circles for eyes.
I used sugar flower stamens for the whiskers, I cut them in half then snipped off the heads and pushed them into the snout with a little sugar glue on the ends.
The mouse poking out of a hole was easier to make as you only need to make the top of his body. You do need to cut a small hole in the cake before you cover it with sugarpaste so he will sit in it.I wasn't sure how to make the holes so it would look like Swiss Cheese, I had cut a few holes in the sponge before covering it.
Then I tried to make the holes stand out more by smoothing over them with a ball tool, which looked good but it still needed more. So I started pressing the ball tool into the sugarpaste in different places and made different sized holes. Soon enough it started to look like real cheese, and if I'm honest yes, I did get carried away with the holes! But it was so fun because it surprised me how real it looked.
To make the wood effect board, I covered the board with cream coloured sugarpaste then marked shallow lines about two inches apart to make it look like pieces of wood stuck together.
Then I painted it with light brown paste colour watered down with clear alcohol (Clear alcohol evaporates completely so is safe to use with sugar craft paste and dust colours - even for children's cakes) don't use water as this will dissolve the sugarpaste and you will have a sticky mess.
Once it has dried paint over in patches with a darker brown paste colour diluted with clear alcohol. Allow to dry then using a scribing tool, mark lines for the grain of the wood, the cream colour shows through to give a nice wood effect.
