Chanel Cake

OK, it's a bit a long story but I will tell you anyway. This good friend of mine is a self confess fashionista and brand junkie. I met her during my younger days and we made it trough ups and lows and still remain the best of friends.

Browsing trough those blogs and websites about cake decorating one can not help but notice the intricate of handbag shaped cakes. This interesting form of cakes taken my mind to this friend of mine who I think might appreciate a handbag shape cake. So with her birthday approaching I asked her if I could create her a handbag cake. She agreed, and we decided to do a Louis Vuitton Artsy Empriente bag in Infini the bag which she had me bought for her from Paris.

Continuing my research oh handbag cake I've seen good ones, bad ones and the best so far is a depiction of Chanel classic bag by sugar sweet cakes and treats which I found while browsing trough cake central. This changed the whole plan, I was so smitten by this cake so I went back to my friend and asked if I could do this one instead. She always been a huge fan of Chanel and classic flap is her Holy Grail bag by far so she agreed.

So here goes, my first 3D cake in the shape of Chanel Classic Flap in Black.

 

Chanel Cake

So to start this project I started with the chain and gold parts of the cake because it will take time to set and once its set I have to paint the gold using mixture of gold dusk and vodka. I did around 80 chains all together and I did 2 of the buckle with Chanel CC logo just in case.

 The chains and Chanel logo

And there's a funny story in between. Around 3 days before my friend's birthday her dear husband sent me a message on Facebook. He was asking me if I can create a Chanel bag cake for her birthday, it's so sweet but I think he's a little bit too late because I thought about it like months before. So I suggested him to keep his money instead because this cake will be my birthday cake for her and said he should spend the money to get her a real Chanel bag hehehe. Unfortunately he didn't end up buying the real bag, but I still think that it is really sweet of him organizing a surprise cake for his wife's birthday.

I was on business trip that week, returning home on Friday night and the party is on Saturday noon so I didn't have much time to prepare this cake. I asked the lovely Bakerz Mum to bake the cake on Friday afternoon so it will be ready by the time I reached home on Friday night. And Bakerz Mum baked this beautiful marble cake, quite a large cake she used 23x33 cm cake tin and it took almost 3 hours to bake. 

Once it's ready I cut it 3 parts according to size and stack it on top of each other. The top layer had to be cut in half because it turned out too tall.

Marble cake stacked on top of each other and I shaped the top bit following the contour of the handbag.

To add strength and make sure the cake doesn't collapse I inserted 2 wooden dowels as construction

Once I'm happy with the shape and dowels inserted I crumb coated the cake with butter cream, by the time I finished it was already late and I felt really tired so left the cake over night to let the butter cream crusted and set

The next morning I woke up early to start on the cake, even though it looks simple but this is one of my feared part, covering the cake with fondant. I read the tutorial from sugar sweet cakes and treats and the part how to cover the cake is a little bit different from what I usually did which I have to cut the fondant according to size first then I laid it on the cake which I'm afraid might change the shape of the fondant not to mention the possibilities the fondant will tear or change shaped. To my surprise the tutorial worked well and I managed to cover the cake with diamond quilted fondant.

   

First cover the front part and over a bit to the back part

The back bit placed with the flap and the small square where the buckle will sit

The cake covered in front back and sides

The logo is on and white fondant placed to cover the cake board

Now the tricky it is the chain, the reason why I found the tutorial from sugar sweet cakes and treats is the best because it shows how to do the Chanel chains so realistic. So I followed the tutorial to do the chain on the Chanel cake.

Chanel cake with chains on

View form the top, I only did one strap due to time constrain maybe if I got a chance to do this bag again I'll do double straps

Front frontal view

Side view

Rear view

Close up on the Chanel logo

The cake was a huge success at the party and the birthday girl was very happy, I think she will be happier if the husband got a real one for her hahahaha. There's a funny story when one of the guest asking where's the cake as he thought it was a real bag hahahaha classic.

The birthday girl with her Chanel cake

What good is a cake if you don't cut it and eat it hehehehe.

This cake was really fun to make and I'm really happy with the end result, the good respond made all the time spent well worth it. Really hope that I get to do more 3D cakes in the future.Thank you all for checking and I will update you with my next project.