Train Driver Cake Topper

This is the cake topper I’ve made for my boyfriend’s dad’s 60th birthday party. He loves trains so the cake is going to have a railway theme (I have a model steam engine drying as I type!). This is the first model person I’ve ever made and I’m pretty proud of him, although he does only bear passing resemblance to the birthday boy!

I used Sainsburys own ready-to-roll icing and Dr Oetker Coloured Regal-Ice plus additional pastes as follows:

Paprika/Flesh – head and hands
Liquorice – hair (tiny amount)
Navy – jacket and hat (used in addition to pre-coloured blue)

His trousers and tie used the pre-coloured icing. His legs were actually a white sausage wrapped in a thin layer of black (so as not to waste it) and then folded in half.

I left each section to dry seperately but created the holes I would need later to fit him together. Instead of using cocktail sticks I used strands of spaghetti – not only are they technically edible, they also snap down to size really easily. Once he was dry I brushed the ends of the spaghetti sticks with edible glue and put him together. He has sticks holding him in place at the shoulders, neck and waist. Unfortunately, as his trousers dried, they must have come away from their support as he’s leaning back slightly but he’s going to be at the bottom of the cake looking up so thankfully it’s not too big a deal.

For me the thing I like most about him is his ears. Each ear is made for a small disc of icing a mm or so thick, pressed flat on one side and dented in the middle with the end of a paintbrush. Once I’d added the ears he really came alive – I’m super critical of my own work but I was much happier with him after this addition.