Heaven Lee Cakes

A few weeks ago, one of my clients asked me to make her daughter’s First Birthday Cake.

I was excited when she told me what the theme of her party was. She was going for a Girlie Cow Girl theme and I told her I had just the very thing to take her cake there.

I had gotten a set of Baby Cowboy Boot cutters that I was keen to try, and thought they would make a great addition to the cake.

Here are step by step instructions on making the little boots and a photo of the finished cake at the very end.

Enjoy!

This is what you need to start. Your “MIS IN PLACE” should include the cutters, a stitching wheel, and some cardboard rolls cut to size. About 4” is a good size to work with, when making this little cowboy boot. Also, make sure that you have made enough paste of whatever color you will be using as it’s sometimes hard to match your batches.

The cutter is available through:

www.cakesbyximena.com

She makes the most adorable shoes and they have now released a baby shoe instructional video with at least a dozen versions of a baby shoe and how to make them with the different cutters that she has available.

This is what my little cowboy boot looked like after I made it for the tutorial. It wasn’t really dry yet, but I just couldn’t wait to show it off.

You start out by rolling your paste out to a thickness of 1 or down to about 3 on your pasta machine.

Here is a photo of the ATLAS PASTA MACHINE

It has the crank, and a vice to hold the PASTA machine onto your work surface.

After you roll your GUMPASTE or your 50/50 mix ( ½ fondant + ½ Gumpaste) to a nice workable thickness, you place your cutters onto the paste always making sure that when you are cutting shoes you have your LEFT and your RIGHT.

After you pull the excess paste off the cutter, you will make sure you keep it in an airtight container because you will be using it again.

To make your Cowboy Boots more realistic looking, you will mark them with your stitching wheel, all around.

This just adds more detail to your items and shows that you are very detailed in your work.

There are 2 ways to dry your pieces. You can drape the shaft of the boot over your cardboard rolls and “glue” them together with royal icing, or…

You can fuse both halves of the shaft together with a little gum clue and insert the cardboard paper roll inside to keep them upright.

This method is excellent when you are in a hurry and your paste is rolled out a little thicker than usual, as rolling it out thicker will make it sturdier, but slower to dry.

Here is a view of the Boot Shaft with the Cardboard tube inserted, upright.

When the boot shaft is dried, you can paint it to make it look more realistic

When the boot shaft is dried and painted, you can then proceed to make the accents, the toe, the back heel and the boot straps.

Here I show you which cutter cuts what.

You will then add the boot toe, heel and straps and when they dry, you will finally place the sole. Taking your gum glue you will run the glue around the rim of the dried “BOOT” and place it on the freshly cut sole.

Here is the boot, painted and dried.

Here is the Cake that I made the Cowboy boots