When I was little I always loved the cakes that my mum made for my birthday. We had a book called Cake Magic and my sister and I could choose from it which cake design we wanted her to make for each birthday. I still look back on pictures of those cakes and smile, and it’s important to me that I can give my boys those same memories. My approach to cake decorating is a little different – I don’t work from a book, I simply let them pick a theme and from there on in I just make it up as I go along, but I have to say I’m really proud of the cakes I’ve managed to come up with. 
A while ago I was asked on Facebook how I went about making the characters that I use to top my boys’ birthday cakes. It wasn’t a request for a specific character, more a question about the general approach that I take, so here it is…
What are the characters are made from?
I always make my characters with fondant. I tend to use fondant simply because I can pick it up in the local supermarket rather than having to make a special trip to my local cake decorating shop to get some modelling paste. You’ll notice that all of my characters are quite short and fat – this works best with fondant as it means that characters are less likely to collapse, it also removes the need for wires inside the figures (to give them a particular shape). I’ve tried using wires a few times in the past and gotten in a terrible muddle trying to get the fondant formed around the wires and looking good so I avoid using them when I can. 
How is the fondant coloured?
I always buy white fondant and then colour it myself with concentrated food colours. You can buy coloured fondant (which saves time), but when you’re making characters you’ll find you only need a tiny bit of a few of the colours so will have a lot more waste than colouring it yourself. It’s also difficult to buy ready coloured fondant in all the shades you’ll want to use so you’d end up trying to mix different colours together to get what you want. I use concentrated colours as it’s easier to get the intensity of colour I want without making the fondant too soft and sticky. If I add a lot of colouring (for example if you’re colouring your fondant black) I find that it gets a bit too sticky to work with. If that happens then I simply knead in a little icing sugar and it ‘s fine to work with again. When I’m colouring fondant I always make sure I wash my hands between each colour otherwise I end up getting into a mess! I draw details such as eyes and mouths using food colouring pens. If you don’t have these then you could use a cocktail stick dipped in food colouring instead.
What tools do I use?
There are a few tools I’d recommend, they’re all really inexpensive so worth getting if you’re planning on making a few cakes in future
- A sugarcraft tool kit for shaping your fondant
- A decorating brush set – you can use these to paint a design onto your cake if you’d like to, but I mostly use mine to paint on a little water to stick various parts of my figures together.
- I have a little rolling pin which is useful for making clothing, such as the cloaks on my wise men (OK not cartoon characters, but still cute little cake toppers).
- A small sharp knife – I just use the smallest knife from my knife block, there’s also a cutting tool in the tool kit I mentioned above that you can use too.
How are the characters stuck together?
Water makes fondant sticky so if I want to join two bits of fondant together I simply wet it a little. You can buy specialist edible glue but I’ve always found that water does the job just fine.
How do I get the characters looking right?
For me getting the character to look right is all about copying the originals as much as possible. Rather than making it from memory I like to keep a little plastic toy version next to me to use as a reference as I go along, or failing that I’ll use pictures I’ve found online or in magazines. It’s quite tricky to describe the general process I follow so I’ve recorded myself making a little fondant Peppa Pig cake topper and explained my process as I’ve gone along.
Some of the key tips from the video are… Always focus on the character’s most distinguishable feature, which for many cartoon characters is the head, and then build from there. Try your best to match the colours and keep everything in proportion, for example Peppa Pig’s head is bigger than her body so don’t make the body too big. Pay attention to shapes – on these Octonauts, Captain Barnacles and Peso have round eye, whereas Kwazii’s are oval. If I’d simply given him round eyes like the other characters he wouldn’t have looked right. 
I always avoid making body parts too thin. Fondant collapses under too much weight so thin legs and arms wouldn’t hold their shape. For Peppa Pig I stuck her arms down by her sides rather than sticking out and I replaced her thin legs with boots perfect for jumping in muddy puddles! If there’s a detail you think will be tricky to replicate then think about whether it’s really essential to making the character recognisable. Peppa Pig has a purple rim around the outside of her eyes which I thought would be easy to get wrong. I simply left it off and I suspect that noone would notice it was missing without going back and comparing my fondant figure to the original character. If you’re sticking on little details (e.g. ears or arms) make a little hole to insert them into rather then just sticking them on. This helps them to stay in place and will keep the point where the join is looking neater. Finally, make your characters first and then design the cake around them. This means that if your characters turn out a little bigger/smaller than you’d originally intended you can tweak the design of the main cake around them. When I made the Cars cake, Mac (the lorry) turned out taller than I’d expected as I simply couldn’t squeeze the detail onto something smaller. So I could still have it coming out of a tunnel on the side of the cake, I simply made an extra layer of sponge when I was baking, making the cake taller and meaning that Mac was the perfect size. Making the characters first also means you can make them a few days in advance when you’re relaxed rather than trying to rush them the night before your childs birthday party when you’ve got lots of other things to finish too. 
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Valentina says
Hi Charlotte,
I just watched your Peppa pig tutorial and found a great.
Where is the best place to purchase food colouring paints and pens and the equipment you used in the video?
Thank you.
Charlotte Oates says
I usually buy mine from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sugarflair-Concentrated-Food-Colours-Prepacked/dp/B00O434PDC/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1467560203&sr=8-3-fkmr2&keywords=sugarflair+food+colouring+pens#ace-1653177716
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sugarcraft-Sugarflair-Colour-Sugar-Liquorice/dp/B0036HUUDG/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1467560284&sr=8-1&keywords=sugarflair+pens
Daniella says
This is super helpful! What kind of cake would work best underneath? These figures are super heavy and I’m worried they will squash my cake!
Charlotte Oates says
Either my vanilla or chocolate birthday cakes should be fine. I put a fondant hulk fist bigger than a regular hand onto the chocolate one and it was fine. If any of your characters are particularly heavy then you should put a skewer through the middle to add extra stability (I did this with the hold fist, although mostly to stop it falling over).
Claire says
Hello there, please can you tell me how far in advance I could make a figurine for a cake topper please and how to store it?
Charlotte Oates says
You can make a cake topper a long way in advance. Store them somewhere they’ll be protected from dust at room temperature. Make sure it’s not somewhere with a lot of moisture as that’ll make the fondant go sticky, you want to somewhere it can dry out.
Jackie Jackson says
I enjoyed your tutorial so much! I learned so many little “nuggets” to help and guide me through my Peppa Pig cake for granddaughter. I’ve been making Birthday cakes for sometime but have not felt confident enough to tackle making my own figures/cake toppers. You have helped me to be able to do this. Thank you so much. You are so pleasant to listen to and your pace is perfect. Please continue to post these instructional videos. God Bless
Charlotte Oates says
Aww, thanks so much for your lovely comment 🙂
I hope your granddaughter liked her Peppa can and had a lovely birthday x
Brooke says
Good afternoon,
My fondant decorations get mushy and basically wet, after putting them on the cake. Example: I made a baby shower cake with a banner and flags on Friday. By Saturday morning, they had all gotten wet, and slid off. Can you please tell me why, or what to do? Thanks!
Charlotte Oates says
Hmmm, I’m not too sure what could have caused that.
What was the main cake decorated with? was it covered with fondant or buttercream? If it was buttercream then the moisture from the buttercream could have made the fondant wet.
Did you add a lot of food colouring? If you did then that can make the fondant wetter and stickier. You could try adding some icing sugar which will absorb the moisture from the fondant.
How is the cake stored? If you stored it in the fridge then the damp environment in the fridge could make the fondant wet.
Natalie says
So glad i found this! This made modelling so much easier! Thank you! X
Elaine says
I am SO glad i came across your tutorial! Definitely the best one i have found. You are so easy to watch and listen to. Having been tasked with making a joint cake (one half cartoon characters, the other half dolphins!) i am feeling slightly less intimidated by it. Wish me luck in my first ever attempt at fondant characters!
Charlotte Oates says
Thanks for your lovely comment. Good luck with your fondant characters, I’d love to see a picture when they’re made.
Jacqui Chatterley says
Hi Just reading your blog…….. If you add Xantham Gum (Asda do it in free from section as its wheat free) or Gum Tragacanth (not wheat free – more expensive and only really available from cake maker or cake decorating outlets) …. this will stiffen the fondant so it is less likely to sag…… You can also make ‘Flower paste’ or ‘Mexican paste’ for modelling Recipes online
I did a very basic cake decorating course years ago which helps me do family cakes
And cornflour added to sugar paste is a defo NO !!
Kelly says
Hi I attempted some fondant figures and the fondant cracked a lot and it completely ruined the figures. I used cornflour to stop it from being too sticky when I was working with it so I don’t know if this has caused it to crack. Can you advise what I could be doing wrong? Thanks
Charlotte Oates says
I suspect that the cornflour may have dried out the icing a little causing the cracking (although I haven’t used cornflour for this before so I can’t be 100% sure). I usually use icing sugar if I need to make the icing less sticky which you may find works better.
Maggie Moles says
HI I’m hoping to make a chuggington cake for my 3yr old next month, any tips on how to make the characters similar to yours to stick on the top?
Would it be easier to cheat and use a small chocolate roll in the middle and then cover with fondant?
Charlotte Oates says
Personally I think you’ll find that putting a chocolate roll in the middle will make things harder rather than easier as they’re quite soft and it’ll be quite easy to squish it out of shape. If you want to put something in the middle the I’d suggest shaping some marshmallow rice crispy treats into the shape you want instead. These will be much firmer and easier to cover with the fondant. I terms of making the characters, it really was just a case of putting a toy version next to me and trying to copy it as closely as possible, of all the characters I’ve made I did find these three the trickiest. I’ve made a video on You Tube where I talk though my modelling process (it’s for Peppa Pig but the process I go through is similar), you can watch it here.
Karen says
Fab blog!! Great tips on the characters, I’m attempting a Ben and Holly’s little kingdom themed cake for my 3 year old next week.
Charlotte Oates says
Good luck! Send me a picture when they’re made x
Martin @ The Why Chef says
You make it look so easy! I can’t even bake the cake so it looks appetising! I’m going to show this to my wife as she is far more creative than I am – and that means I can eat loads more cake! 😀
Charlotte Oates says
Sounds like a great plan 😉
Anyway whilst a pretty cake is nice, the most important thing is the taste and I bet yours are delicious!