I made this cake for Finnian’s 16th because he had a murder mystery party.

I began by making a bowl cake and covering it with brown sugarpaste, before cutting out a peak and ear flaps and attaching them to the main cake with water. Next, I cut out strips of light brown sugarpaste and attached them to the cake in lines, which I then painted a darker brown to distinguish them from the rest of the cake. I piped lines next to these with black, red and green icing to create the patterned effect. I also rolled a sausage out of the light brown sugarpaste and arranged it in a bow shape on the top of the hat before painting it darker brown too.

Next, I molded a pencil, notepad and pipe out of basic sugarpaste shapes and painted them the relevant colours. 

Finally, I made the magnifying glass by molding the handle and rolling a long sausage out of the light brown sugarpaste. I created the glass effect by making caramel and letting it set, incased in the sugarpaste sausage I had rolled out and formed into a circle. Then I painted parts of the handle and the magnifying glass dark brown, but as I was short of time I didn’t let the caramel set enough so some of the paint ran into the caramel and discloured it. However, if you have as creative an imagination as my younger brothers you could see that this discolouring could give off another effect, given that it was a murder mystery party! 

I finished by arranging the cake on a cluedo board and using an edible pen to write a big ’16’ on the sugarpaste notepad.