Dora Cake for Tia

Today I finished the Dora cake I was making for my daughters Third birthday, Tia is completely mad for Dora the Explorer so I set about making a Dora cake , rainbow butter cake inside with strawberry butter cream filling, I downloaded a pic from the Internet of a colouring in sheet of the wily explorer in question and set about making her likeness atop of the cake.

I cut out a negative image of Dora, totally in black and applied it to the cake, then I cut out the different components in colour blocks and stuck it to the black image and slowly filled her in with colour ,

As you can see it was very fiddly work and it took time and care to apply all the colour with a scalpel and a couple of different tools. I reccommend allowing the fondant to harden slightly before cutting out the components as the fondant stretches and is hard to work with when it is too soft.
the star detail was a star puch cutter and it was a very quick tool that made everything alot easier. 

In the end I used different techniques to lift the image like texture around the socks and shoe detail, around the backpack straps and collar, it gave it a three dimensional quality, 
I got the bright idea of putting a paint roller in her hand and have her painting a rainbow and stars across the cake! It was a good idea, very effective looking, but my hubby didn't like it.... oh well tuff.  I feel this cake had a good finish to it and was quite a good result, Tia is going to love it, it tasted good and has Dora on it.... thats all that counts to her!