Cake decorating class #3 - Shoe cake topper

I made a pair of shoes to go on top of my birthday cake :-)

I was very pleased to hear from Lorna that in our third cake decorating class we were going to make a pair of shoes from Mexican paste. That was perfect because I had already decided to have a shoe-themed birthday party a month later and was planning to make a cake with a shoe on top. Once when I was browsing on Amazon - which I seem to do a lot - I came across something called a Jem shoe cutter and bought it, then never got around to using it. So I was really pleased when Lorna said we would need this specific cutter set for our class - given it cost about £15 I was quite pleased I already had it! Also, it was good that Lorna showed us how to use the set - it did come with instructions of course, but they are not the easiest to understand and as you can see below, the kit has some prety random bits in it!

The two pieces on the right are the ones we used first; they clip together to make a mould for the heel. Take a small piece of Mexican paste and roll between your palms into a cone shape, then place in the heel mould and clip it together.

Use a craft knife to trim off any excess and ta da! You have a heel. It's upside down of course.

Next we made the sole of the shoe. I had already decided my birthday cake would be black and pink, so I decided to make the shoes to match. I rolled out a small piece of Mexican paste that I had coloured black, and used the largest piece of the shoe cutter to cut out the sole.

As you can see the cutter also embosses a pattern in it.

If you go back to the picture of the cutter set, you'll see a couple of pieces of foam. They're about the same size and shape as makeup sponges, but are designed specifically to fit with the pieces of the shoe. You place the heel against one foam pad and use a little sugar glue to stick the end of the sole to the top of the heel. Then, using the foam, lay the sole at an angle and leave it to harden.

I decided to go for a two-tone effect so used the cutter to cut out pieces to fit inside the inner markings on the sole. It was hard to make it neat though and the edges look a bit ragged, never mind!

Next using a different cutter to make the top part of the shoe.

There was a second cutter in the set that was actually an embosser rather than a cutter, and I used this to mark out the pattern you can see below.

There was another, differently shaped, foam pad to allow this piece to remain curved as it dries:

Finally I used some sugar glue to stick the curved top part onto the sole of the shoe. Don't these look cute?

Finally I stuck a sugar flower from a Dr Oetker tub onto the top of the shoe. I wouldn't mind a pair like this in real life!