Patchwork Puppy cake

What you'll need:

• Katy Sue Knitting Silicone Mould
  
• Tylo powder
• Cornflour
• Coloured fondant
• Dresden tool
• Cocktail sticks
• 3 straws
• Florist wire
• Florist tape

How to make:

Step 1: Carve your cake and crumb coat with ganache

1. 
   Prepare your ganache and layer your cake. The height of your cake should come to roughly 4 inches.
2. Carve your cake into a mound. Don’t worry about the waste, you could always make cake pops with the leftovers.
3. Fill the layers with ganache and fillings of your choice, and then crumb coat the cake using the ganache, making sure it is nice and smooth.  It can be a little messy at first, but persevere! Using a flexible scraper will allow you to follow the curve of the cake. Keep going until it’s nice and smooth all around.

 Step 2: Rice Krispy shapes and ears

1. 
   Create your shapes using a rice krispy recipe, or store bought pre made squares.  Mould together using your hands and create the basic shape for the legs and head. Follow Jennifer’s guide to get the right shapes and quantities. You can download the image to print at home HERE. If your shapes are looking a little rough, smooth out with ganache.
2. Create a loop shape and bind together using the floral tape.  Roll out some fondant pre-mixed with with Tylo Powder and place your wire in-between making a fold, trim to size.  Shape together using your hands in the shape that you want your puppy ears to be.

Step 3: Decorating your cake

Jennifer used a primary colours in her theme but you could choose your very own colour palette depending on the theme for the cake or style desired.

1. 

   Prepare your fondants with Tylo Powder, or buy a pre mixed modelling fondant.  Leave overnight or an hour after adding the Tylo to get a nice elasticity, perfect for modelling.

2. Roll out enough fondant to have 10cm x 10cm squares as this is the size of the Knitting Mould, roughly 15cm x 15cm to accommodate for nice straight edges.  Smooth out and polish with a cake smoother until you have a nice flat surface.  Recommended width would be 3mm.

3. Using the Katy Sue Designs Knitting Mould, dust the mould with cornflour and shake off any excess. Place the mould onto the fondant and press down with an acrylic disk or a wooden block.  Cut off the excess.

4. Paint edible glue on to the area only in which your fondant will be placed.  Be careful not to push too hard on the fondant as the knitted texture may be damaged.

5. Trim any excess off using your cutting wheel.

6. Repeat steps above to create more patchwork squares.

7. When it comes to a panel that overlays over other colours, trim where necessary. Mould into shape if needed and push the fondant together to seal any gaps.

 Step 5: Covering the legs

1. Create two squares the same size as the Knitting Mould and imprint the texture.
2. Put a cocktail stick into the Krispy Cake shapes and roll your pieces into the different coloured fondant.  Make sure to stick down with some edible glue.  Re shape and touch up any imperfections using the mould.

Step 6: Covering the feet

1. Repeat similar methods as above, Jennifer used a circle fondant piece to cover the feet.

1. Use a long cocktail stick to create the holes and pop your straws in place, cut where appropriate so it is flush to the cake.
2. Place a little circle topper on top and put sticks in the straws allowing a few centimetres to remain sticking out.
3. Place a circle of fondant to cover up the cake topper made of card.  Place the head carefully on the sticks.  Any imperfections that occur during this process you can use the Knitting Mould to imprint the knitted texture back into the fondant.

Step 8: Fondant patches

1. Create different patches of the knitted texture, use different shapes like hearts, ovals squares and circles.
2. Make 5 thin strips of 5 different colours. Approximately 10cm by 0.5cm. Leave to one side.

Step 9: Making the legs and feet

1. Now that you have all of your pieces to hand you can start by adding the bottoms to the feet.  Cut small circles that are a little bit bigger than your feet. Make sure to imprint with the knitted texture.  Paint with edible glue and stick the foot on top.  Repeat on all feet.
2. Trim off any excess on the legs and stick into the feet using a cocktail stick and a little edible glue to help them stick to each other.
3. With the thin strips of fondant, stick using edible glue along the seam where the leg meets the foot, giving it a more complete and finished look. Repeat this on all 4 legs.

Step 10: Assembling your puppy cake

1. Position the legs on to the body, use edible glue and cocktail sticks to hold into place.
2. 
   Cover your ears with knitted pieces of fondant, mould together where necessary and touch up using the Knitting Mould.  Where the wire comes from the ear place inside a straw and use this to insert into the cake.  You may need to use pliers to help put in place and a cocktail stick to help create the hole. Use edible glue to help secure into position.
3. Make the tail by rolling a long thin piece of fondant and roll onto the Knitting Mould, use the mould to bend round covering as much as possible.  Re shape as needed and add a little coloured tip using a thin piece of fondant at the top end where it connects to the puppy.

Step 11: The finishing touches

1. Use your cake wheel to apply a stitched imprint into the seams.
2. 
   Create the eyes using circle cutters and create 1 large white circle, a black circle and a small circle for the sparkle which brings your puppy to life.
3. Apply the eyes using edible glue.
4. To create the mouth and tongue, roll out some fondant and create an oval shape  and press with the Knitting Mould.  Once you have your imprint of the ovals cut so that they have two flat sides and circular ends.  Fold over so that both sides have the knitted edge.  Place it in a spoon so that it gains it’s curved shape like a dogs jaw.
5. Use a different shade of fondant for the mouth and create a fondant piece that will allow you to cut out an oval shape with a flat bottom. Use your dresden tool to cut into the tongue giving it a line down the middle.  Glue the tongue on to the mouth and glue the back before placing into your cake.  Position just below the nose.
6. Cut out knitted heart shapes using a heart cutter and glue onto the board.

And there you go, your very own puppy cake! Make sure to share your own creation on our Facebook Group, we'd love to see your versions of this cake!