Another cake project I took on recently was an old style radio made from a Battenburg cake. That meant a marzipan outer. It was heaps of fun researching the types of short wave radios, and working out how to make it all come together.
As with all mechanical types of cake themes, the secret ingredient is antique lustre powder. It really looks like metal.
The knobs were chocolate shaped in a classic choc mold, which looks just like a knob. The writing decals are all chocolate piped onto baking paper, painted then applied. This is so much easier as you can follow a pattern under the baking paper.
And of course the messy pile of cables is licorice. It does look quite wobbly over all, but I really like that. Food should look like food pretending to be something else, not the other way around in my opinion.
I very much enjoyed making the Battenburg cake too. With its criss cross of vanilla and raspberry cakes stuck together with raspberry jam, it makes a pretty checkerboard cross pattern when cut. I am used to a two by two but to get this cake big enough, I went three by three.
A classic Battenburg cake image because I didn’t get any pics of this cake cut!