Penguin Party Christmas Cake

This year I decided to hijack my mum's Christmas cake for a spot of decoration! She made the cake a little while ago and then covered it in the marzipan and royal icing... the only credit I can take is for the decoration. However, any geography teachers out there will have to excuse the geographical faux pas...the penguins are just on their Christmas vacation to the North Pole!!

This design is in Good Housekeeping's Christmas Collection magazine. It is designed for a 13 inch cake but mine is an 8 inch, so it's a little crowded but still very cute! I made the penguins entirely out of regular sugarpaste in the following way:

1. Roll a small ball of black for the head and an oval shape for the body.
2. Roll out a small amount of black and then cut a straight edge down the middle. Using a suitably sized round cutter, cut out slightly less than a semi-circle down that straight edge...this will give you the wings.
3. For the feet roll out two small balls of orange and flatten slightly. Using a mini pallette knife mark in two indents to give 3 toes.
4. To make the beak, make a small yellow cone and then using your pallette knife, gently cut in to it to seperate the top and bottom of the beak.
5. For the white stomach area, take a small ball of white paste and gently roll flat in to an oval.
6. To assemble use edible glue or water. Put the feet next to each other and sit the body on top before attaching the white oval for the stomach. Glue on the wings and then gently insert a short piece of spaghetti into the top of the body, upon which the head can be attached. Glue on the beak and then for the eyes, take two tiny balls of white icing and press them into position. Finally, dip the end of a cocktail stick into black paste colour and insert into the centre of each eye.

The method for making the sea pool was quite interesting! It required Fox's Glacier Mints to be melted in a foil cup in the oven for around 20 minutes. Blue paste colouring was then immediately swirled through with a cocktail stick before pouring the mixture quickly into a recess on the cake... it does set very quickly. The fishing rod is just a cocktail stick and some florist wire. The finishing touch was a little disco violet edible glitter to give it that snowy sparkle!

These are just very simple penguins but if you'd like more detailed instructions then check out
May Bakes Cakes on Facebook as she provides a photographic guide to penguin construction!