Owl Cake Decorating and Baking Tutorial

Tutorial Preview

Join NOW to access 1661 courses Watch Now
14 Day FREE Trial
Owl
with Kay Gajra
Skill level: Advanced
HD Lessons: 13
Decorating time: One Day
Now Playing
15:34

1. The Structure

Get your DIY skills at the ready for the creation of the owl cake structure. You may wish to watch through this lesson first to see what’s involved and if you’re not confident with this stage it might be a good idea to ask your local DIY services to help out.
Now Playing
18:15

2. Carving and Ganaching

Pick your cake of choice ahead of the carving and ganaching stage, Kay opts for three 6″ chocolate cakes but also mentions that a mixture of cake sizes would work fine. Ganache or buttercream can be used for covering the cake which will represent the owl.

Use a picture of real owl to base your carving on and you’ll find it much easier to produce the owl shape. A dowel will also help with stability and strength of the cake and will be added soon.

Now Playing
08:53

3. Adding Tin Foil

Tin foil is used to cover the exposed pipe support, this is a cheap and effective way to create the tree shape upon which the owl will perch. Pop the Owl section of the cake in place and cover this again with a layer of ganache – this acts as a great edible glue for the next stage.
Now Playing
23:32

4. The Tree

It’s now to time to learn how to cover the board, tree and owl using white sugarpaste.

This lesson in the tutorial starts with the covering of the tree and explains how to do this with confidence and how to add extra realistic detail of the bark on the tree trunk.

Now Playing
17:42

5. The Owl

Using the same white sugarpaste as before (Kay opts to use Renshaw’s brand sugarpaste) we move on and explain how to cover an owl with sugarpaste.

The same method as used with the sugarpaste covered tree will be adopted here using layers to cover the owl.

Now Playing
12:54

6. The Face

The sugarpaste owl face can now be created, remember to use a real picture of an owls face as this will help massively. The face is built up using sugarpaste components which you will need to build up from scratch, during this lesson Kay shares her techniques of how she achieves a realistic face on the cake.
Now Playing
27:00

7. Adding Detail

Extra details are added using more white sugarpaste to the face which add another element of realism to the owl cake.

Sugarcraft modelling tools like PME or similar should be used to create realistic feathering effects around the owl eyes.

Now Playing
16:32

8. Adding Detail (Continued)

Learn to create an owl beak and attach this to your owl cake design, the board is also covered in a natural way which will make for a great grass area when it comes to colouring the cake.
Now Playing
23:39

9. Airbrushing

A master class in airbrushing lesson, Kay shows you how to use a Dinky Doodle airbrush (or airbrush of your choice) to spray the cake to a high standard of shading and colouring. Colour is added to the owl, tree trunk and the covered cake board grass.
Now Playing
25:31

10. Painting the Owl

With the airbrushing dried off we move onto painting using dusts. Colour is added to the tree trunk and the owl in different shades. The eyes and nails of the owl are also coloured using a black extra colour or black magic paint which gives a very vivid black colour.
Now Playing
13:35

11. Finishing Touches

Almost there! The finishing touches to the cake are added by using the airbrush to add a bit more of a filler colouring to the owl. Gold leaf is also added to sections of the owl like the eyes and section of the fur.
Now Playing
02:08

12. Other Ideas

Paul Bradford and Kay Gajra touch on some other ideas for the Owl cake. Sugar mice, added leaves or even a kilt are some of the ideas discussed.
Now Playing
02:47

13. Pro Lesson

The Pro lesson for the owl cake tutorial covers the costs, time to make and a chat about merchandising the cake.

Join your guest tutor for this course, Kay Gajra from Kaykes and learn how to make her ultra realistic owl cake design with the Owl Cake tutorial, that covers skills at an advanced level starting with the building of the cake stand and airbrushing, sugarpaste layering and modelling.

Kay Gajra

Kay Gajra

14 Day Free Trial