Suitcase Leaving Party Cake

I recently made this cake for a friends' leaving party as she is off to travel around the world for the next year (jealous!!!) . I wanted to represent as many of the countries she is visiting as possible but didn't want the cake to be too big .  After doing a bit of Googling to see what other travelling / leaving party cakes people had come up with I settled on a suitcase cake with hand painted labels for New Zealand, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam and China plus a good luck heart and name tag.

I made the labels first by cutting shapes from flower paste (gumpaste) and letting them dry overnight.  I then drew on my designs using a black edible marker pen and painted them using gel food colours diluted with vodka.  It's important to use vodka rather than water as the alcohol evaporates quickly so the flower paste doesn't become soggy.  I also used the flowerpaste to shape buckles.

The cake itself was dark chocolate mudcake filled and covered with milk chocolate ganache that was spiked with Cointreau to give a boozy Terry's Chocolate Orange taste.  The ganache covered cake was left to firm up in the fridge overnight before being covered in chocolate sugarpaste (fondant).

To give it a leathery look I allowed the sugarpaste to dry for 15 minutes once rolled out before applying it to the cake and rubbed it with a small amount of cornflour. This causes tiny cracks all over the surface and gives it a dull appearance, usually the exact opposite of how you want sugarpaste to look!!

I moulded a handle and cut straps from the leftover sugarpaste, running a stitching wheel along the edges for a bit of added detail.  You can get the same effect using a cocktail stick to make tiny dots but it takes a lot longer!

The final touches were to paint the buckles using gold lustre powder mixed with vodka and thread the straps through them.  I also used the gold lustre to add a few highlights to the labels and handle.  I attached the labels using edible glue and the cake was finished!!

It looks a lot more complicated to make than it actually is as the cake is just a simple rectangle with rounded off corners.  It's also great if you're new to covering cakes as the sugarpaste is meant to looked cracked and uneven to add to the aged, leathery suitcase effect!  If you're not confidant about painting the labels yourself there are lots of companies online that print edible images too.

I was really pleased with how this cake turned out in the end and it seemed to go down well at the party too!  I hadn't used chocolate sugarpaste before and was worried it would taste artificial but it was actually really tasty, much nicer than regular sugarpaste which I usually peel off and give to my other half who loves the stuff!  I got mine from a local cake decorating shop but I've seen it in larger supermarkets recently too.

xxx