This week, I made one of my most challenging cakes … Challenging not only because of it’s shape and structure, but more so because it was for someone who would be able to identify every little part of it!

The cake was in the shape of a Nikon SLR camera and was for a professional photographer, Ingrid Weel – a talented lady who, through her fabulous work, has transformed some of my own cakes and chocolates into works of art!

As always, I started out with lots of research about the camera with hours spent on the Nikon website.
After noting down all the details and their dimensions, I set about making a stencil for the same. This exercise really helps get the proportions right and also gives you a starting point for deciding on how you will balance the overall structure safely.

The stencil was used to carve out the various parts – the body, the lens and the flash. A mock assembly showed how well they fitted together in proportion to each other. The cake was then worked on until it looked more like the final shape.

The body, lens and flash were then covered with black sugarpaste and worked on individually.
All the little details (the buttons, the controls and the viewing panels) which went on each part were created with sugarpaste mixed with CMC powder. The lettering and detailed markings were done with royal icing.

Here’s a look at the finished cake from different angles…
         

Wish I had a camera like this one so I could have done more justice to the photos!!!