Betty Boop

To Achieve this cake the first thing one must do is to make the back drop that Betty attaches too. To do this a large heart with bottom drop is cut out of sugar paste, then cut out and attach a medium heart in red sugar paste, pipe a small bead of white royal icing around the large white heart and attach the row of red beads, do the same round the red heart and leave to dry as long as possible, preferably a month.

Next comes the fun part, making Betty Boop herself, firstly use black sugar paste and mould her dress. Secondly roll out her chest, arms and hands all in one piece of peach sugar paste and using edible sugar glue attach to the top of the dress, joining her hands in front of her once again with glue. Thirdly make 2 legs and her shoes all in one, make a tiny red heart to attach to her garter and place the legs inside the hem of her dress using glue. Lastly make a heart shaped head attach a heart shaped red mouth, button nose and 2 white rounds for her eyes. Attach to the top of her shoulders using glue.

Now paint 2 tiny stripes either side of her heart for her garter in black. Using light blue colour and clear alcohol paint 2/3 of her eye, leaving the bottom right hand white. Next paint her hair line in black leaving a small parting down the centre of her head, paint in her eyelashes top and bottom of her eyes, then her eyebrow. By now the blue should have dried enough for you to paint the top of her lid leaving a small V shape and a thin line of blue showing. Paint in her shoes.

Next make an 8" heart shaped cake and cut off 3cm at the point, cover in white sugar paste, make a medium heart in red the same as the backdrop and place on the cake. Attach a row of red beads round the medium red heart using royal icing. Cover the cake board using red sugar paste. Now make a small red heart set aside to dry once it has dried attach to the front of the cake using a small amount of white royal icing. Carefully place the cake on to the board. As the picture below shows.

Once Betty has dried, measure from the base of the cake at the back to the top of the cake, mark out this measurement on the backdrop and attach Betty using a little royal icing to the backdrop, allowing a few millimetres from the base of her shoes to the mark of the top of the cake. As you don't want her feet digging in to the cake just gently touching. As below. Set aside to dry.

Place red ribbon round the base of the cake and around the cake board. When Betty has set on the backdrop and is safe to stand attach the full backdrop using royal icing to the back of the cake. stand something to hold the backdrop in place till the royal icing has set.

Voila one cake as per the top picture.

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