I created the main cake topper with royal icing. I started off with an image of Optimus Prime that I'd found on the internet that I thought would translate best into Royal Icing. I had already cut a 6"x6" square piece of fondant that had been drying for two days.
At first I thought I should create a royal icing transfer, which is when you pipe royal icing on a suitable surface, then, once it has dried, transfer the image onto wherever you want it- cake, cupcake, cookie. I had placed the printed image inside a plastic jacket that I use for transfers. However, after piping a few lines, I thought the image might be too difficult to transfer all in one piece. I then decided to pipe directly onto the square piece of fondant. The only problem with this is that there is little room for error so I had to be quite precise.
To do this, I placed the printed image on top of the fondant square, and used a clean and sterile pin to create pin pricks of the outline of the image. Took a while! When that was done, I was ready to create the outline in black by piping over all the pin prick outlines. I didn't think to take pictures of all this (I always forget!) but here is a photo of the outline of Optimus Prime in Royal Icing, next to the print out image. I think you can just about make out the pin pricks I'd made on the print out!
My decorating foam pad (only used for cakes) looks rather grubby in the photo due to cornstarch (just to be doubly sure the fondant doesn't stick to the foam) and spilt red royal icing!
Thanks for reading and happy caking, folks!
