Designer Handbag Cake

For Donna’s 60th birthday, she was planning a big celebration and the cake needed to be fabulous.  She told me that she loves her designer handbag, as well as expensive jewelry and gorgeous makeup.  I was able to incorporate all her favorite things into one cake! This was my first handbag cake.  I can’t believe I was never asked to make one before!  When I was asked to make this one, I was so excited!  I stacked a few rectangular sheets of cake and carved them to achieve the right shape.  Once it was carved and covered in buttercream, I covered it in white fondant.  I then airbrushed the cake with brown and black airbrush color.  Normally, to build up the right color using an airbrush, you need to add a few coats of color, allowing the color to dry in between.  But for this handbag, I wanted an uneven almost splotchy look to mimic the look of leather.  So I just sprayed and sprayed until the cake looked really leathery.

It was important for me to replicate the logo onto the handbag.  Since the design is pretty detailed, it would be difficult and very time consuming to hand paint it.  Instead, I bought this stencil from Stencil Planet.  To apply the logo to the cake, first I mixed up my paint.  I mixed some gold luster dust with some bronze airbrush color.  I like this mix as opposed to mixing luster dust with vodka because the paint ends up much thicker and doesn’t usually require more than one coat.  Okay, time to paint.  I held the stencil up to the side of the cake, dipped a paintbrush into my paint and gently dabbed the color onto the openings in the stencil until each shape and symbol were filled in.  I really like how the pattern turned out!  With the pattern in place, it was time for the details.

I wanted a realistic looking zipper and I didn’t have a mold; I wonder if they even sell a zipper mold.  Anyway, I rolled out a thick strip of fondant and pressed an actual  clean plastic zipper (attached to one of my sons tiny sweatshirts) into the fondant.  I cut the extra fondant from the sides of the zipper off, and applied the zipper to the cake.  I shaped the zipper pull out of fondant, but that part was just done freehand.  Then I painted the whole piece with my gold/bronze paint.

I shaped the handles of the handbag out of some tan colored gumpaste.  I made them a few days in advance so they would have time to dry.  I made the buckles in advance as well to allow them to harden and keep their shape.  I really wanted the handles to be standing up, but I was terrified that they would rip the edges of the cake off during transit, so I just attached them to the sides.  After all is said and done, I actually like this look better and I’m glad I made this decision!
The final touches were the cutest part of the cake.  I draped scraps of white fondant on top of the exposed cake board to soften the overall look.  Then I arranged the handmade fondant makeup and pearls!  I painted the pearls with pearl colored airbrush color to get them looking realistic.  Donna loved her cake!  Happy 60th birthday and many more!