Paw Patrol Cake!

I looooove this Paw Patrol Cake! 

I found it too busy at first- with everything looking cramped but in the end I think it made for a dramatic cake that the birthday boy loved.

I started off making the dogs in advance. I had to make 4 shades of brown for 4 particular dogs- it was not easy! I worked from the bottom up, starting with the bodies and front and back legs. I learned quite a few things from making these dogs, like dont attach the neck until the head is ready to go on. Because the necks had dried hard, and when they heads were ready to attach they were hard too, there was a bit of a gap between the neck and the head, which didn't look good at all. So I took off the necks with my exacto knife, and made new necks. Because they necks were still soft, the heads were pushed down a bit onto the necks and so there were no gaps this time. I had made the hats, badges and their special backpacks in advance, so I just glued them on. 

This is the sketch I drew that was approved by my customer.

Here is a photo of the tower after it was ganached.

Here is the tower, decorated after it was stacked on to the bottom tier. The legs of the tower were added after the tower was stacked.

The trickiest part of the tower was the slide that went around the tower. It took me two attempts to get it right. The first time I just used modelling paste. that just wouldn't work. The second time I decided to use gumpaste/flower paste. 

I rolled the gumpaste to a thickness of about 2mm and cut strips of about 1". I placed each strip onto a fat straw to dry into a U-shape. To stop the straws moving about I stuck it onto a tray with sticky tape. When they were halfway through drying (holding its shape but still flexible), and after fumbling about and 2 attempts later, it occured to me that it was best to cut it into lengths that fit each section of the tower: the sides, front and back. It got easier with this method but I still had a hard time trying to get them to go round each corner. I attached each piece of slide onto the tower, starting at the top and working my way down, using toothpicks to keep each piece in place. Here it is, all toothpicked up!!

I used the yellow strips to cover the joins between each piece of slide. Good thing it was part of the design anyway. The toothpicks left holes in the tower, so I covered them with white royal icing. Yay for royal icing!

The rest of the tower was made in advance. I used 4" and 5" cake drums for the underside of the viewing room. They were covered in sugarpaste in stages. I used a very thin cake card for the bottom part of the roof and covered it with sugarpaste on all sides. The top part of the roof and the telescope is all sugarpaste.

The only thing I would change (and I will, because I've got another order for this cake in two weeks!) is not to use Rice Krispie treats for the viewing tower as it was really heavy. I will also make the central dowel (a threaded rod) go all the way up to the viewing tower. In this cake, the threaded rod stopped just before the top of the body of the tower, so there was little support for the viewing tower and roof. 

Next post- My White Wedding Cake Promotion!