Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi
I am fairly new to cake making and decorating as hobby, but supported by your classes had great success. I have been asked by close friend to make a ginger cat 3D however not sure how to go about it. Please could you give me some ideas and direction as to where to start and finish . Sadly no cat making tutorial to follow ? Thanks Lauren

Hi Lauren

Have a look here for step by step carving a cat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2da_w0XBPA
and here for ideas on colouring: http://shoshannah84.deviantart.com/art/Cat-Cake-1-99216681
However if you’d also like to have a look at Paul’s dog tutorials, they could also be used as guides. These will help you with positions and supports.
I would suggest having a picture of the cat or perhaps downloading some cat templates to give you an idea of postions. Here’s one template site:

60+ Cat Shape Templates, Crafts & Colouring Pages

If you don’t have an airbrush start with coloured sugarpaste lighter in colour than the cat and then build the colour up by either painting or dusting the cat. If painting, use gel or powder colours and mix with vodka or lemon extract to make a thin paint. Let each layer of paint dry before adding another. If dusting, again use the colour sparingly and build it up. The colour can be set by steaming it from a kettle. Be very careful when steaming, it just needs a waft near the cake, enough to set the colour. In each method of painting try it out on an iced dummy cake or cake tin to get the hang of painting and steaming before tackling the real thing. I would strongly recommend using ganache for crumbcoating your structure. Unlike buttercream, ganache sets hard and holds all the pieces together to form a strong base for icing with sugarpaste.
Hope these suggestions help.