I only realise how strange some things that I do are when I get strange looks from Mr NQN-and he himself had an oddball upbringing. Case in point, I was talking to Mr NQN and a friend.
“Well, you know like when you used to put freezer bags on your feet as a kid and try to pretend to go ice skating across the carpet in your bedroom…”
I looked up and they looked at each other heads and eyebrows cocked as in “Who’s the crazy over there?”. Well apparently they swore black and blue that they had never done that. Surely I can’t be the only one that did that can I? But apparently I was. I admit to a mild obsession with snow and ice, only really because we had none. Icebergs, snow and ice skating were all things that lucky kids got to see and do-never mind the fact that I hated the cold. But cold from a distance seemed much more appealing.
Are you as excited slash exhausted as I am that Christmas is coming up any day now? Or are you one of those fortunate ones that have pre-planned everything and for whom Christmas will be a breeze? Well this cake might be for those of you in both camps. Because while it looks terribly complicated, it is one of the best cakes to try for an introduction to cake making or if you are thinking to progress to making a round or square wedding or birthday cake.
The reason why is because a round or square cake needs to be absolutely level in all respects (using a spirit level is not uncommon). However, the iceberg is meant to look angular and you can actually never go wrong with any shape that you make for an iceberg. As Margie Carter points out, no two icebergs look like!
And she should know-she is the original co founder of Planet Cake (along with the fabulous Faye Cahill) and features in their current television series. She sold the business on to Paris Cutler who now owns Planet Cake. Margie now teaches at Whimsical Cakehouse which is also co-owned by former Planet Cake teacher Linda Harden. Phew, did you get that? Basically, that just means that they’re cake mad much like all of the other students at the class-I mean I thought I was a cake enthusiast but these people know everything about cakes. Thankfully they don’t make me feel silly if I don’t know as much as they do and are happy to share their knowledge.
One Saturday morning I made my way to Whimsical Cakehouse’s location in picturesque Dolan’s Bay. Set in a residential area with the waterfront as a sparkly background there are a maximum of eight students per class. Apart from their regular teachers they also bring out decorating superstars like Peggy Porschen, Kaysie Lackey, Jacqueline Butler and Debbie Brown who are coming out next year and who will teach students their secrets. Everything is provided including aprons and today we will learn how to construct an iceberg, ganache it and then place fondant on it and then use gum paste to create the adorable figurines-and I had no idea how I was going to make one of those penguins but they ended up being quite straightforward. Margie is instructing the class while Linda facilitates it or is the “kitchen fairy.”
So without further ado, here is a step by step on how to make a Santa North Pole cake! Set aside a day for just decorating the cake-the cake itself will need to be baked ahead of time and you can purchase pre baked “unfinished” cakes, which all of the cake decorating places use from Mondo Kitchen. Virtually any type of cake can be constructed from a round or square cake and the chocolate ganache (a mixture of cream and chocolate) keeps the cake not only moist but gives it a putty like texture that means that it sticks together and maintains it’s shape.
So tell me Dear Reader, did you ever put freezer bags on your feet and pretend to be ice skating (please tell me someone else did!). And what did you dream of doing when you were a kid?
Santa North Pole Cake
Margie Carter
First of all Margie slices the cake in three across and then brushes each layer with a sugar syrup to keep it moist. She then uses a palette knife to spread some chocolate ganache between each layer and puts the cake back together again. Slice off any crusty bits from the top and discard (or eat or save for cake pops!). We are using a large cake board covered in white vinyl as this wipes easily and is a much more user friendly base than using white fondant (which you wouldn’t eat anyway).
The next step is to start carving the iceberg. Place your cake on the cake board on a turntable. You can pretty much do any sort of towering triangular shape but the more angles the better and there are three things that you need to do: a slippery slide for the penguins to slide down, a ledge for your polar bear Santa and penguin to sit on and the top needs to have a flat portion for the top penguin to sit on.
Using a serrated knife cutting downwards shape the iceberg into an asymmetrical hexagon at the base and start carving away bits. The sharper the edge the better to simulate the look of an iceberg and even if you cut away, you can always put bits back together using the very handy ganache which sticks all of the moist cake together easily.
Then you start covering the whole cake in a layer of ganache -you want it thick enough to cover any bits of cake so that the crumbs don’t fall out and you get a smooth surface. At this stage you can also use the palette knife and light, firm pressure to create the shapes and define the slippery dip.
We leave this to sit under the air conditioner (it just happens to be a 36 degree day, not ideal for cake decorating) and while this firms up under the cool air, we start on our first figurine, the polar bear. We start with a ball of white gum paste about the size of a nectarine or plum (they use gum paste as it has tylose in it which helps the figurines to set but you can use ready to roll fondant but may need to allow it to dry overnight to become firm).
Pushing out the feet
Massaging the neck
Poking the eyes
Tilting the head
The earless polar bear
Placing the ears
The finished polar bear!
Shape the ball into a thick sausage and then makes a little indent for his feet. Interestingly, Margie uses reference pictures from the internet which show the features of a polar bear from different angles-the neck is long but the head is relatively small with most of the weight on the stomach and bottom half of the polar bear.
The red arms of the santa suit
You then thin out the top of the bear and massage the neck into place and then pinch out the snout or nose of the bear and then sit him down on a surface. Using a frilling tool you then make the eyes and even though it doesn’t look quite like bear yet (think lizard or a dinosaur) once you get the ears on then it looks more polar bear like. The ears are just two very small balls that you set low and back in the head of the bear using a tiny amount of water on a brush and pushed into place gently using the frilling tool which also makes a little indent in the ear.
Making his Santa coat
Attaching his arms
And because my polar bear has a santa suit, you roll out a little red fondant and wrap his torso around it using a little bit of black fondant rolled out to make a belt. And you make the red arms of the jacket out of red using a little white fondant as the hands which you stick onto the red sleeves using a little water. Adhere these to the suit body and you have your santa polar bear!
Next comes time to hot knife the cake to create a smooth surface. Here, using a palette knife or an old fashioned butter knife as Margie likes to use, you dip the knife in the very hot water and then smooth down the rough edges of the cake using a firm hand. This is my favourite part (perverse I know and odd because I hate ironing) but I like getting out the creases and bits that stick up and making a smooth, glossy surface. We break for a quick, yummy lunch of sandwiches, wraps and fruit and most importantly Lindor balls and then get onto the fondant. And I’m glad that we did have lunch because rolling fondant is my least favourite part and requires strength that I just don’t have!
Margie rolls out about 1.5-2 kilos of white ready to roll Bakels fondant. Using acupuncture needles which are finer than regular needles, she gets rid of any air bubbles that inevitably pop up and smooths down the surface. The key is to use cornflour but not too much cornflour on the rolling surface as the fondant dries out quickly. Using your arms you move the fondant between rolling to ensure that it doesn’t stick to the table and sprinkle a little cornflour on the rolling surface.
Using arms to lift fondant to make sure that it doesn’t stick to the surface
When the fondant is ready, make sure that your cake has has a final brush with the sugar syrup. Taking a deep breath and placing the fondant on your arms bring it over and gently place the blanket of fondant on top of your cake. Now working quickly but gently as the fondant does dry out, smooth it down over your iceberg-because it is so oddly shaped I found this part quite challenging and had to take a quick peek underneath the fondant to see the contours of the iceberg.
Then using a smoothing tool (and look out for any additional air bubbles that pop up and lance those with the acupuncture needles), smooth down the surface of the fondant. If you feel that you cake might not be as smooth as you want you can roll the fondant a bit thicker but normally about 2mm is ideal. And a clever trick to not losing your little piece of overhead transparency film is to put a blue band-aid or tape on it as they are clear (or I use blue film from a folder because I know I would lose it otherwise!). It helps to cut off the excess fondant as this can add additional weight to the icing.
My iceberg
Smoothing down the odd edges with a larger piece of fondant
Using another smoothing tool, Margie then gently buffs the edges to give it a clean edge. And a tip, to get to those little corners using a large piece of clean fondant really helps to buff the creases out!
It’s air gun time! This is my first time using an air gun so I’m rather excited. The trick here is to go along the contours of your iceberg and to stand not too close to too far from the cake because you don’t want to colour to look too strong. And if you are doing a lot of air gun spraying, use a mask and goggles because you will breathe some in. If you don’t have an air gun you could use a brush and a little lustre dust or leave it plain without the colour.
Penguin time! I was quite nervous and we were running a little late so that tends to panic me a little. The penguin ends up being easier than the polar bears and simply require starting with a ball (ensure that the penguin is smaller than the polar bear) and then shaping it into a triangle.
Massaging the neck to make a penguin
Cutting the beak open
Sit the penguin with flat bottom and then pinch out it’s head massaging it a neck. Shape a pointed beak and using scissors, cut the beak horizontally so that it looks open and push it gently open using the frilling tool. Pinch out little mounds to stick the feet to and pinch out a little mound for its tail and using the frilling tool, push out little holes for the eyes.
The next part is to make the feet using small balls of gum paste which you flatten slightly and cut out two triangles to make webbed feet as shown. Then make the flippers using rolled out gum paste-I made it into an oval and cut this in half to make the flippers.
You need to make four penguins for this cake which are all slightly different. You need one with long flippers that touch because it is holding a fishing pole, another to stand at the top of the iceberg where the flippers are extended because of course it is an excited penguin as it is just about to go down the slippery dip. You need another one going down the slide which is the most different out of the four as you need to ensure that its back fits the contour of the base of the slide so make sure that it does while the gum paste is still pliable and a final half penguin or really just the bottom of the penguin that has just gone into the water!
The demonstration cake
We’re not done with the gum paste! One final touch is the half fish and flippers that the penguin is fishing and the Christmas present that the Santa polar bear is fishing. The poles are wooden skewers and attached to this is a length of wire. At the end of one of the wires, Margie puts a ball of glue around which I shape a present out of fondant. I just rolled a ball of green gum paste and then sliced it using a small paring knife to get straight sides. Then I rolled out some red gum paste and made the ribbon around it and let it set for a bit.
One final touch is to paint the penguins using edible black paint. You paint down the side along where the flipper starts, the head and just around the flippers to show the edge. This is careful work and takes a while to do. Then using a super fine brush and a mixture of pure alcohol and a drop of pink colouring, colour in the feet and inside the beak with pink! But the tiny eyeballs are the last touch-roll teeny. tiny balls and pop them in the eye sockets and then colour them in with a black dot.
Time to set the penguins and polar bear into place! Using cut off skewers, position them where you want the creatures to sit and then impale them into position gently as they will still be slightly pliable.
The last step is to use some clear piping gel, tint it blue and then spoon it around the vinyl surface. Then using a palette knife spread it around in a circular shapes and use a little extra to make a whirlpool for where the penguin bottom comes out of the water. Place the fishing poles into the cake between the paws of the polar bear and the flippers of the penguin and shape the wire that holds the present to make it look like the bear has just caught the present. Place the fish in the water and attach it to the wire of the penguin’s fishing pole. And before you know it, your Santa North Pole iceberg cake is done! I was so delighted with how my cake came out, sure it wasn’t perfect (the artist always sees the flaws!) but it was such a fun class and I loved my little penguins!
NQN attended the class as a guest of Whimsical Cakehouse
Whimsical Cakehouse
743 Port Hacking Rd, Dolans Bay, NSW 2229, AustraliaBy appointment onlyTel: +61 (02) 9501 2492
http://www.whimsical.com.au/
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86 Comments | Add your own
OMG OMG OMG! It’s so damn pretty and I can’t believe you can actually eat the whole thing!!! WOW!
Too bad I live in Melbourne otherwise I’ll definitely have a lesson at Whimsical Cakehouse ~
What ana amazing cake! Really pretty. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Rosa
Everyone’s cakes look like iceberg cakes with polar bears and penguins on top. If I made it, people would ask me ‘What’s that supposed to be….?’ hehe:)
What an amazing cake! Beautifully decorated, perfect for the winter holidays or birthdays!
In the photo of the demo cake it looked like the penguin caught a curried fish head:) A Singapore/Malaysian version of North Pole cake:)
Ahhh, yet more proof that we are in fact long-lost sisters — I used to do that with plastic bags too, lol!
Your cake is lovely, Lorraine…that bear is especially adorable!
my oh my – this is a masterpiece!
Great post Lorraine, facinating. I know someone who would love to do that class!
As for the freezer bag skating -ah -No, can’t say that I’ve ever seen this done before but then, yo’ve shown me lots of things that I’ve never seen done before.
It looks pretty perfect to me and sooo cute with all those little penguins sliding around. I actually didn’t do the freezer bag thing, we used to pop socks on and slide down the hall but it is such a good idea I am totally popping bags on the kids feet this holidays to counter act holiday boredom
What an adorable cake Lorraine. I adore the little penguins. Nice job.
Just gorgeous! I often wondered how they got the water look. Unfortunately I can’t share your ice skating experience as a child. Hehe
too cute nqn..
This is another “so you, Lorraine” moments in Fondant world. This I might be able to do because it can be misshapen. I love the color scheme on this, as I just upgraded my decorations to that blue with lots of white and a tiny bit of red.
Absolutely gorgeous and looks really do-able. Thank you, as always, for sharing.
That is soooo cute Lorraine! You’re definitely getting me in the mood for Christmas
Wow, this a splendid cake…I like the penguins, look so cute.
Now, tell me something, freezer bags? really? you are so funny.
Such an amazing cake! I am constantly awed at what you come up with next
I’ve never put my feet in freezer bags and pretended I was ice skating. I did wish for snow and ice though.
I have alsways wanted to do a cake making class like this, maybe I will put it on my christmas wish list. I used to ice-skate indoors not with plastic bags but with socks on the polished floor boards!
Oh my gosh, what an ADORABLE cake and FUN class!!! I wish we had access to such classes in my area. I want to use this design idea and make a climbing wall cake for my husband:)
Actually, the “ice skating” with plastic bags sounds familiar:)
Great post, Lorraine!
I’ve been enjoying the Planet Cake show and have it on good authority that the book will be under the tree for me this Christmas.
Uh, no. No freezer bag enclosed feet in my childhood sorry
Awwww! Adorable. I can’t say that I ever put freezer bags on my feet to skate (my mother would not have allowed it), but I did do all kinds of imaginery stuff.
Oh we used to do the plastic bag thing too…didn’t work terribly well but it was fun.
The cake looks amazing!!!!
You did a great job! Oh gosh I just love Margie – she’s so funny isn’t she?! No, no plastic bags for me as a child – gosh, i really missed out!
What fun! Love the pic where she puts the jumper on the polar bear
. My savvy kids would probably make comments about having penguins in the North Pole, maybe we could do seals 
!
Ciao
Alessandra
This is so cute!!! I love the polar bear and the penquin feet sticking out of the water. And hmm….no….first time I ever heard of freezer bags on feet skiing on carpet.
Sure did!!!! Thick socks with plastic bags over them so you could go from skating on the carpet to, once bags were removed, skating n the floorboards, all through the house!
So quirky and cute!
I really appreciate the effort you go to to create such magnificent posts!!!
I didn’t use freezer bags, but my sister and I used to slide in our socks on the wooden floor boards.
Love the cuteness but that just makes it all the more difficult to want to mess it up by devouring it!
Hahaha, my brother and I totally did the plastic-bags-on-carpet thing to simulate ice-skating. You are not alone, Lorraine!
That cake looks spectacular, and I love all the little animals. Too cute.
That cake is the cutest thing I have ever seen! But how on earth could you eat it? You would be destroying their habitat!
OMG–what an adorable cake. I would be way too intimidated to ever attempt it had I not seen your step-by-step explanation. Fascinating. I love seeing how things work. This was terrific.
I grew up in Florida, where I dreamed of all things ice and snow, imagining them in every way I could, though sadly not with bags on my feet!
Haha I LOVE that shot of the penguin on his back -too cute! You did such a great job
love Whimsical Cakes
How ABSOLUTELY adorable this is, TRUE!
You have alot of patience and are very talented, but I don’t have to tell you
Freezer bags on the feet, never heard of before today,
But I came from “the land of the snow and ice” and used to ice skate with my imaginary friends in my own special and unique way
That cake is too cute for words.. I used to put empty tissue boxes on my feet as a kid and skate around.. hehe glad to hear I wasn’t the only one with strange skating dreams…
freezer bag skating – of course!!
amazing job on that cake lorraine, well done
What a beautiful cake it is to good to cut.
I never put on freezer bags but my Nana used to wax her floors so I would try to skate in my socks. LOL
Several near misses but no harm done !
Oh, I sooo miss decorating novelty cakes! My tip for rolling out the fondant for covering the cake is to cover the table with clingfilm, and to put a layer of film on top as you roll it out. Once it is the desired thickness, you can then use the film to lift and roll it on to your rolling pin (do not remove the top layer of film, it will prevent the icing from sticking to itself). It is then a doddle to lift the icing and you can then un-roll it directly over your cake, easy peasy!
Yep, did the bag-on-feet thing, also spent many hours sliding down the stair in my sleeping bag (the luge)…
wow the cake seems complicated to make! good job!
Love both polar bears and penguins, so how can this cake not enchant
! Even in the middle of Sydney summer [which is actually turning out very cold; my heatbank is on 
!]. Sorry, Lorraine, I am negative towards having used plastic ‘skates’ also! Well, you would be too, if for the last four years in Europe you had to mark some seven spots on the way to school, where you absolutely HAD TO put your schoolcase on the ground and sit on it to slide across the next icy patch – you definitely, very definitely needed skates and skill, and plastic bags would truly have had you a-over-t !!
You know, I have never worked with gum paste, but maybe I should give it a go cause those penguins are adorable.
And yeah, I used to just use plastic shopping bags to pretend I was iceskating
unfortunately/fortunately (not sure if it is a good thing), my sister and i used to wear plastic bags on our feet and ‘skate’ around the house
Regarding the sliding activities, forget about the cake for a moment, yes, we used to have a big long lounge room with a lacquered wooden floor. We used to slide along it with our skinny little butts on those “Little Golden Books” that they used to publish for kids.
Later on my parents covered the boards with carpet – I wish I’d thought of the freezer bags at that point.
Wouldn’t it have been easier to bake a conical cake – roll up a silicone mat and use that as the form? Then carve that?
That cake is absolutely adorable!
I can’t remember putting bags on our feet but I do remember putting on the furriest socks we could find and ‘skating’ around on the timber floors. We didn’t have much carpet.
What a wonderful opportunity to learn from the guru of cake making so to speak. It does look relatively easy…a good bench surface is obviously required..drat not something I have. No stopping you adding your little creative touches to the cake. I love the present on the end of the bear’s line.
I’m afraid I was not as ingenious as you with the freezer bags..come to think of it.. they were not invented yet! Anyway great article..it certainly has inspired me to give this a go.
That fondant is CRAZY smooth. Puts my year ten efforts to shame
What a fantastic cake – and I love the reassurance that no two icebergs look the same!
What a cutie-pitutie! So adorable indeed, especially the little penguin tail sticking up
I didn’t need freezer bags! As long as you wore socks you could slide across the kitchen tiles at home!
That cake looks amazing! Think I might have to book in for a course there in the new year!
Wow this is great…those penguins are just sooo cute!
It was tissue boxes on feet for me!
Amazing story, I really know nothing about cake decorating and would love to do a class such as this one.
This is truly too cute to eat! Love the penguins. And this is one time I would PAY someone to make this for me. LOL
How appropriate, I am in Helsinki, just a hop, skip and a jump to Santa’s home.
I never put freezer bags on my feet but we did slide up and down the hallway in our socks with similar effect. We also used to slide down the stairs in a sleeping bag which was probably more dangerous but lots of fun!
I’m so excited about Christmas this year and love the look of your festive cake – super cute!
My jaw just dropped open and never closed reading entire post – maybe exaggerated a bit but I’m in love with this cake… super cute!!! I want one, as a home decoration! I will not allow anyone to eat this cake.
Love it! You certainly make crazy gorgeous things seem achievable to the average person! You should be proud!
WOW what an amazing cake.. I wouldn’t let anyone go near to eat it lol
What a super cake – love the penguins and polar bear in santa suit. But the pedant in me has to say polar bears at North Pole, penguins at South Pole, but in cake land, anything goes!
So gorgeous. LOVE it…
I LOVE the slidey penguins, so cute! Sigh, I am one of those not organised people. Maybe I’ll tell the kids Santa’s sleigh couldn’t take off this year due to inclement weather.
I don’t ever remember putting freezer bags on my feet, but I did do the “socks on the stone floor” type of skating
This is darling, Lorraine!
Love the cheery bright colors and whimsical figures. 
Wowsers! That’s amazing! Loved seeing the how to make steps!
Wow. This is amazing!!
what a fantastic cake – complicated but a really fun take on the traditional iced fruit cake!
I never did the freezer bags across the carpet but we did the sliding across the polished floor of the church hall in our socks – so much fun! I also just wanted to see snow and was envious of friends who bought some back home to put in their freezer after visiting the snow – and I loved it when I was in Scotland even though it was inconvenient
I adore the Santa suit polar bear and the snowflakes! I don’t think I’ll ever have the patience to play with fondant though, kudos to you!
Wow! Such an cute, but impressive cake. I don’t know if I would have the patience. xoxo Mum
I grew up in the land of ice and snow in the midwest of the US. I can’t imagine you guys down under doing CHristmas in the heat of summer…no wonder you dream of snow! Since I own a St Bernard, snow and ice are heaven for us. She is mad for snow drifts and loves exhausting herself bouncing through them.
Those cakes are really little works of art, aren’t they? And she made a lot of them… very impressive!
oh, this cake is so cute, I can’t get over the adorable little penguins. I love it!
Fantastic looking cake… just one flaw – no penguins found in the north pole – only down south in Antarctica. Don’t worry we won’t tell anyone!
I used to use mum’s shower caps…then would be in trouble for putting holes in them!
I wanted to be a detective – still do
can’t say I joined you with the freezer bag thing hehe. I CAN say, however, that this cake is adorable 
Heidi xo
wow that is some seriously amazing cake!
My mother went through a lot of plastic bags with my ice skating hobby as well. And I just love Planet Cake. How good is the talent!
What a gorgeous cake!!
Now, Lorraine – you DID say freezer bags: socks across a timber floor – an entirely different story. You mean there has been one child in the world [living in houses blessed with timber floors!] who has not enjoyed that little occupation?!
this is definitely way too ‘high level’ for me, but certainly beautiful! as for me, i used to wear wool socks and slide over my marble floor ;p works the same heh
Lorraine,WAO,this penguin cake is superb.I”ll make it during Christmas back home in Nigeria.
Very impressive Lorraine! Once explained it actually looked manageable.
And I love the cute penguins!
i think penguins might be one of my favorite critters ever. top 10, definitely.
What a fabulous cake! I love the sliding penguins. GG
Oh that’s so cute!!
We used to slide up & down our tiled hallway in our socks when we were kids
This is fabulous! I love winter themed Christmas things!
Waw!! What a fabulously looking alternative decorated cake!
So festive & funny at the same time!
MMMMMMMMMMMMM,…The penguins are so funny!
Thanks for sharing the step by step guide!;)
Such an adorable cake!!!! I can’t stop staring at it hehe
wow, thank you for the very detailed instructions, i’m definitely going to give it a go.
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