I am currently 31 years old, and I admit that I am always excited putting on a Disney movie for my 2yo boy. I am probably a bit abnormal, but I guess I have never truly grown out of them. My absolute favourite – Beauty and the Beast. But, coming at a close second, was The Little Mermaid. There was something magical about that movie, the singing, the colours. So full of life!

So, you can imagine my excitement when I was asked to do a Little Mermaid cake. My inner child was jumping for joy! I couldn’t concentrate on work that week, I kept thinking about this cake and how I would plan it out.

The cake itself: 9″ chocolate sponge cake, filled and frosted with vanilla buttercream frosting. All the decorations were done with fondant and gumpaste.

I had planned to do the tail brushed with metallic green dust. In the end, I also decided to add some glitter. I had read somewhere that you can use piping gel to be the medium to apply dust and glitter – so I thought I’d give that a try. And what do you know, it looked AMAZING! The piping gel gave the tail a slick, wet look – perfect for a mermaid swimming about in the water. Noted for next time I go for that same look. I also used a bit of the piping gel to thin out the buttercream in doing the piped bubbles.

The original cake that I was requested to make initially had a flat top. I decided, after trying out the technique previously for cupcakes, that I would apply it to the top of the cake to make it look like waves. I really liked it as it gave a realism and extra texture to the cake.

I think I’ve fallen in love with Fondtastic gumpaste. I used to make accents using fondant but I’ve converted – no backsies! lol I got a bottle of Americolor regal purple. I can’t say that I was overly impressed with the purple. I think I’ll be reverting back to making purple my old method – bit of electric pink, bit of electric purple and then add the Americolor regal purple or Wilton’s violet. That purple pops more (kinda like the Cadbury’s purple). This purple felt a bit – bland. Oh well, at least there was enough colour going on elsewhere on the cake 🙂

To do the wave piped border around the bottom edge of the cake I used Wilton tip 1M.