Combivan Birthday Cake

I made this little beauty this week, I say little because it is only a four inch round! The inspiration came from a fondant pieced three dimensional version that was intricate in detail and beyond what I could manage in time and talent. Instead I designed the Combi in Photoshop Elements.  I am rubbish at drawing curves freehand and, to be truthful, not much of a freehand artist at all, so I cheated a bit (well, a lot) by turning a photo of a Combivan into a sketch in Photoshop and using portions of basic shapes to make up the design. Thank you Photoshop for making  my average talents useful!

I then took the finished design to my local cake studio had it printed on sheet fondant. I am LOVING printing on fondant – it really plays to my strengths and I can think of so many ways to make use of that wee technological gem.

The cake part was very simple. The daisies are cut with a flower cutter and dried in plastic artists pallets from the $2 Shop to give them some shape. I adhered the printed  Combi to a piece of rolled fondant with some water and set it to dry on a bit a Glad Bake draped over a glass vase. A vase carefully selected to have the same curve as my cake.

I added some headlights using a flower centre press mold, added wing mirrors, wheels and let it dry hard before adhering the whole piece to the front of my now fondant covered cake. Speaking of covering cakes in fondant – this was the first cake I had covered in fondant myself, without the help of my extraordinarily talented Sister In Law, just by following the instructions in a Craftsy online class. I can add to the lessons offered here one I learned the hard way  – take your rings off before attempting to roll and smooth fondant – I ended up with a big divot missing out the front of the Combi made by accident by one of my rings – oops. I covered it up with the little flowers on the front – cute but not intentional!