Wine Bottle in a Crate Cake

I'm going to chalk this one up as a learning experience. I was attempting to do a wine bottle in a crate cake, basically a chocolate cake with fondant panels to create the cake, and a "gumpaste" bottle topper. So here is the process (not exactly as I did it, but what I have learned from my mistakes).

Making the bottle: 

At least 3 Days Ahead

Cover a wine bottle in a very tight wrapping of cling film. Liberally dust it was cornflour. Take a pound of fondant and add 1 tsp of tylose powder, kneed well until the fondant becomes nice and pliable. Roll out of a quarter inch thickness and then drape over the bottle. Smooth and trim so that it cover half of the bottle. Sit somewhere cool and dry to cure. When you are ready to use the bottle, slit the cling film up the back of the and gently ease off. For a shiny finish, paint with a little piping gel. I was making a bottle of Peach Schnapps, which is white, but if you are doing a wine bottle you can mix a little dye with the piping gel to get a real glass bottle look.

Making the panels:

At least 2 days Ahead

I dyed the fondant using brown colour paste. Dye the fondant first, then add the tylose. I then added a little more dye and kneaded a little to marble, but don't knead too much or you will lose the marbling effect. Roll the fondant out to size and cut, but leave the panels in place for at least 5-10 minutes to cure a little before transferring them onto sheets of greaseproof paper. If you move them too soon they will lose their shape a little and you will end up with wonky sides. Once they are on the greaseproof paper, score and mark to look like wood. Leave to cure. DO NOT TOUCH until you need to use them. I made the mistakes of checking to see if they were dry and caused a weakness that then cracked once the cake was assembled.

When it comes to applying your panels to the side of the cake, I slid them onto my huge quilting ruler and then tilted that to apply to the side of the cake. This kept the panels nice and flat and should stop any weaknesses developing if you're followed the previous instructions.

So here is the result. I'm not very proud of this one as it's a bit messy and one of the panels cracked. I also had to apply a bit of last minute leaf work around the base to tidy up my messy edges, but I think if I was attempting to do this again I could get a much nicer finish, straighter edges and no cracks!