Racing car “cake”

So I’m doing an evening course in cake decoration. However much experience I may have accrued over 30 odd years of playing around with fat and sugar and flour, I’ve never really done much in the way of decorating, and know nothing of “novelty” or fancy wedding cake frou-frou.

This course experience is proving to be a bit odd though. It’s very much about the commercial side of cake decorating, and, sadly, commercial, by and large, means industrial, meaning dubious ready-made ingredients and whatnot. To be perfectly honest, everything we’ve been doing has been deeply unpalatable. She buys in cakes, and we adorn them with ready-made sugar paste, coloured with foul dyes that some supplier websites even accompany with health warnings, about how X e-number is banned in the EU and one really shouldn’t ingest too much of it. Many of them still include Tartrazine, which I thought had been associated with hyperactivity among children. In fact, yes it has – see this news report. Some countries have indeed banned it, but, as with all things, I’m sure the corporations that produce the chemical have more persuasive power than a few medical scientists saying “hang on…”.

That really really isn’t what cake-making, and food in general, is about to my mind. I realise what we’re doing is learning the skills, and practice, but it’s still a bit worrying to be dealing with so many unappealing ingredients.

Anyway, I meant to have this rant on my own blog, but it’s ended up here instead. Accompanied by a picture of this absurd “novelty” racing car I made last night. Icing it was like playing with sticky Play-Doh or Plasticine… which decidely aren’t food (as any child who’s tried nibbling them has discovered). Still, as we’ve discussed, hopefully I’ll be able to apply these stills, but using decent ingredients. There’s just the small matter of finding a decent selection of natural food colourings. I realise some e-numbers are natural ingredients, but I’ve yet to find a good selection of natural food colourings. If anyone has any tips, please do comment and include links.