Pastry chef and co-owner of Nasa Mala Zavrzlama patisserie, Vasilije Vasiljevic is the creator of this fantastic tutorial. From Belgrade, Serbia, Vasilije graduated from pastry school and became an apprentice in one of the oldest patisseries in Belgrade soon after. For the last decade, he has been creating amazing creations mixing cake decoration with painting. His hobbies are painting, photography and he loves to find inspiration everywhere around him.
Equipment Required:
- Waxed paper
- Wilton round tip 1A
- Rolling pin
- Scissors
- Ruler
- X-acto knife
- Brushes: 1, 2, 10
- Wilton modelling tools: 5, 7, 13
- Ball tool
- Paint palette
- Round pans: 6”, 8”, 10”
- Blossom plunger for small flowers
- Vodka
- Thumb pins
- Flower modelling paste
- Dust food colours: Christmas Red, Egg Yellow, Maple Leaf Green, Chocolate Brown, Navy Blue, Black
- Fondant imprint mat
- White sugarpaste
Step 1
My sketch was inspired by several pictures, Toscana cities and wedding couples. You can choose your own inspiration. First, make three cakes using round pans 6”, 8” and 10” wide and 5” high. When the cakes are properly chilled, use the biggest round pan to cut the front of the cake. Stack the chilled cakes from biggest to smallest and cut the front using the biggest pan (10”) through all three tiers, starting from the top of the cake. Separate the tiers, prepare and cover with fondant. Stack them again so they fit together snugly. Roll out more white fondant to cover the front and sides of the cake in one piece.
Step 2
You need to make the templates in the correct proportion for the scene that you are making. Measure your stacked cakes so that you can understand the proportions.
Step 3
Prepare the scene by drawing templates on the waxed paper (buildings, wedding couple and fence). Find it here -
Step 4
Roll out sugarpaste to about 4mm thick. Using the templates and ball tool (or toothpick), trace outlines on sugarpaste. You can use pins to hold the sketches in place.
Step 5
Cut around the templates using an X-acto knife.
Step 6
Cut out all your templates and leave to dry for 48 hours or more, depending on weather conditions, on a flat surface.
Step 7
For the fence, you can use the smallest round baking pan, or a round cutter to dry the sugarpaste with a curve.
Step 8
Roll out sugarpaste to about 4mm thick. Using both sides of the round tip, cut the cloud shape with round movements, free handed, without any specific template.
Step 9
To make the clouds look more realistic, make an indentation with the round tip.
Step 10
You will need to make a lot of clouds to cover whole cake. Leave to dry for 48 hours.
Step 11
Mix dust food colours with vodka. You will need to achieve a watercolour effect.
Step 12
Use well dried fondant and with light brown, draw and lightly sketch a roof, windows and doors with a thin brush, make borders and draw windows, doors, rocks and bricks.
Step 13
Using a thick brush, paint back over with the same light brown, then make some shades with darker brown.
Step 14
Using a thin brush, use a darker shade draw in the detail of the windows, doors and brick detail.
Step 15
Next, use light yellow to paint the sunny side of the buildings. With light blue, fill in the windows . Green and red should be used for painting the base for the blinds, leaves, roofs and flowers.
Step 16
Finish with black, put accent on the edges, colour all the sides and a draw fence. Use the same approach on all your buildings.
Step 17
With light brown, colour the back of fence. Put some shades with darker brown. For better results, use a ruler to draw lines with a thin brush and black colour. Add some details on the fence following the same scheme.
Step 18
Draw outlines with light brown.
Step 19
Use a light black for the groom’s suit and black for the hair and shoes. Use light blue for shadows on the wedding dress. With dark brown, make shadows on the faces. Draw a floral bouquet using a thin brush with darker green and red.
Step 20
Your finished pieces should look like this.
Step 21
Use a thick brush for lining clouds with light blue. Then with black, make shadows.
Step 22
Try to imitate sky using light blue with a thick brush to paint on the cake. Apply colour with wide horizontal strokes. With this method, colour all sides of the cake.
Step 23
Next, roll out light brown fondant to about 4mm thick, to cover the cake board. Make some texture with an imprint mat (or use a round tip or wrinkly aluminum foil).
Step 24
Coat the board with a thin layer of water and lay down the prepared and cut fondant.
Step 25
Using the Wilton tool, make indentations to imitate stone blocks.
Step 26
Lean the arch in the central position to define where on the cake we should draw buildings behind.
Step 27
Using a thick brush, start painting the back scene. With light brown, paint the ground cobbled, while continuing on to the cake’s back scene, to create the illusion of depth. Light yellow should be used for the buildings, windows and the main road. Make blinds with some darker brown and red for roofs.
Step 28
Roll out marble sized balls and use them to attach the scenes onto the cake with a little water. Use the same technique for all buildings. The idea is to make a 3D illusion.
Step 29
In the same way, attach the fence and wedding couple, gluing them together. Attach the fence to the cake board. Repeat the last steps with clouds. If you would like to add additional 3D details, you could make flowerpots and flowers.
Step 30
Add the clods in the same way, starting on the top tier. Place some of the clouds behind the buildings and around the back of the cake.
Step 31
To finish, draw some hearts with red, and birds with black using a thin brush.
