Royal icing outlines.
I started by experimenting with royal icing. The easiest way to draw Jip and Janneke accurately seemed to be to trace them with icing.
The outlines were then 'flooded' with runny icing and left to dry.
In theory they should dry to hard shapes that I could have lifted onto the cakes.
...In practice they never really dried (Either I got the recipe wrong, or I think I might need to buy a dehumidifier!) and then they went really strange.
Obviously I didn't use these.
royal icing weirdness.
Luckily, I had a plan B: cutout fondant shapes!
Dag, Jip en Janneke!
Jip
Janneke
and cat.
Marleen also wanted a pile of books on one of the cakes.
The finished box: Hoera!
Marleen asked me to make 6 cakes for her mother, who turned 70 this year. Since her mum is dutch and likes books, she wanted to use some famous characters from dutch literature, while making sure that the cakes still appealed to her 5 year old daughter.
I love Jip and Janneke- the illustrations are so graphic: the children and their pets are always drawn in black silhouette, whereas the background might be really colourful.
These cakes were a lot of work, (especially with the failed royal icing) but well worth it, I think!
Gefeliceteerd, Marleen's mum!
