Crocodile Handbag

Name: Crocodile Handbag
Yield: Serves 20
Ingredients: 2 mm and 4 mm gold dragees; edible glaze spray (optional); claret food colour paste; 1 kg white sugarpaste; icing sugar, to dust; 1 X Lemon Buttercream recipe, softened; 2 X 20cm square Madeira Cakes brushed with lemon syrup; 50 g Mexican modelling paste (see suppliers); 60 g bag burgundy-coloured royal icing, no. 1 nozzle

Madeira Cake

Preparation info

Serves
20

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Birthday Cake Book

By Fiona Cairns

Published 2011

About

My fantasy cake! I’ve made a burgundy crocodile bag, but make any bag of your choice. A Mulberry maybe, or a Louis Vuitton; you’ll save your pennies and there’s no waiting list. Remember: the more food colour in the sugarpaste, the harder it will be to use.

Ingredients

For the Cake and to Decorate

1 kg white sugarpaste
claret food colour paste
50 g Mexican modelli

Cake
Birthday
Vegetarian

Method

The day before you decorate the bag, colour all the sugarpaste with the claret food colour to make a burgundy shade. If you try to do this on the day, because you are adding so much colour you may struggle to roll it out. Also, colour the modelling paste for the handles the same colour. Roll it into a sausage, about 30x10cm, and bend into a ‘U’ shape with a 7c