My New Handbag

Even though I have made a decision to only put up a new post once a week, I just had to share with you, My New Handbag.  It’s Chanel inspired.

I don’t just like a cake to look good, it has to taste good too so the cakes were made from a recipe I found in Issue 4 of  Donna Hay Magazine.  This issue was dedicated to weddings.  I made 2 x 24cm chocolate and ground almond cakes found on Page 84 of the magazine.

After shaping the cakes into a handbag it was covered in a Lindt chocolate ganache.  I then rolled royal icing over it.  Now I had created my ‘blank canvas’ and it was time to start the fun part – the decorating.


The handbag is trimmed in rolled out black icing.  The little flowers are made from Primrose Cutters that I purchased from The Essential Ingredient.

The handle was a little tricky.  It is made from petal paste, also purchased from The Essential Ingredient. I wasn’t able to buy black petal paste so I used white and dyed it with black concentrated paste.  I moulded it over an upside down Bunnykins two-handled mug.

The flowers, trim and handle were fixed onto the cake with Sugar Flower Glue.

I think it’s a lovely looking cake.  A client had asked me to make it for her daughter’s 40th birthday.  Her daughter, she told me, ‘is just obsessed with handbags’.  The only upset was, that even after seeing the finished product she was shocked at how much I charged her.  A shrieking, ‘what?’ as I stood there holding the cake was not what I had been expecting.  I was shattered as I’d been hoping for a more positive reaction but it is my fault entirely for not fully educating her in what is involved in these kinds of ‘artistic pursuits’.

Here is a very good article on why sculptured cakes are so expensive.  It comes from a blog called Sweet Element.

If you would like more information on how to make a cake like this, please feel free to contact me.

Here are some other cakes you I have been asked to make:

I made this football for an AFL enthusiast.

The client of this cake ordered it for her husband’s 50th birthday.  Her birthday present to him was a week’s cruise on ‘this’ ship.

I made this wedding cake for a bride who wanted a traditional cake.  She wanted it to be ivory in colour to match her ivory dress.  I ordered the edible flowers from The Sugar Flower Cake Shop in New York.  They were fabulous to deal with and couldn’t have been more helpful.  They shipped the flowers and packaged them beautifully.  The bride’s dress was detailed in similar flowers and the brief was that the cake be similar to the dress.

The flowers on the wedding dress.  Photography by Tim Pascoe

A beautiful bride in a stunning dress.  Photography by Tim Pascoe

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