Tutorial: Miniature Swedish Princess Cake

Do you like cake, miniatures, or crafts? If so, you will probably enjoy this tutorial on how to make a miniature Swedish princess cake! Here is what you will need:

1. Polymer clay (white, red, gold, brown, light pink, and teal or light green)
2. Card stock paper (for making a circle cutter)
3. A toothpick
4. A polymer clay razor
5. A polymer clay extruder (optional)

Here is how to make it:

1. Make your mold for the layers by cutting out a strip of card stock paper.
2. Bring both ends together and tape. Now it should be in the shape of a circle.
3. Roll out a circle of white polymer clay. It should be about as thin as one of the layers shown in the picture.
4. Cut it with your mold, and trim the excess with scissors or your nail.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for red, white, and gold polymer clay. Stack each one on top of the other.
6. Create a shallow dome out of white clay. This is the top layer, directly below the teal.
7. Place this dome on the stack of clay circles. It must reach the edges of the circles, otherwise there will be gaps when you slice it.
8. Flatten a sheet of white clay and wrap it around the sides of the cake. Trim off the excess with scissors or your nail.
9. Flatten a sheet of teal or pale green clay. Make this fairly large, because you want to cover your cake.
10. Cover your whole cake (except the bottom) with this green sheet. It is similar to covering a real cake in fondant, as shown below. Note that your cake is not flat as in the picture but domed.

 

11. You will probably have wrinkles or excess clay at the bottom. Trim excess with scissors, and smooth wrinkles with fingers.

12. Using a polymer clay razor, cut the cake. I suggest making faint lines in the cake for where you will cut to avoid uneven slices. Position the razor, holding it from the top. Then press it down in one stroke. You should see layers in your cake. If you do not have a razor, you can purchase one at your local craft store (found in the polymer clay section), or online. A sharp knife may work as an alternative, but scissors do not!

13. Now it's time to decorate! To make the chocolate swirls, I used a polymer clay extruder:

 

If you do not have one, you can simply roll a long, thin strand of clay with your hand.

14. Loop the brown clay strand in a design of your choice.                                                                    

15. Make the rose out of light pink polymer clay, red clay, or red and white clay mixed thoroughly together. Make the rose as shown below:

16. Make two roses, placing one on the cake and the other on the slice.                                               

17. Make the border by rolling two strands of white clay. Twist them around each other and wrap them around the cake.

You have made your princess cake!

Photo Gallery: Miniature Pastries

Here is a collection of miniature pastries I made. Most of my designs are inspired by ParisMiniatures, a French miniature shop. Their Etsy store can be found here:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/ParisMiniatures?ref=search_shop_redirect

Mini Autumn-Themed Pastries!

Chocolate candy cake with pumpkin and macaron on top

If you love pumpkin, pastries, and miniatures, you'll enjoy this collection of miniatures I made! 

Please post in the comments which you would most like me to write a tutorial for! I will post a tutorial on how to make the pastry with the most votes. 

Pumpkin striped candy assortment

Pear tarte

Croquembouche (a tower of cream puffs)

Pumpkin cheesecake!

Pumpkin patch cake

Caramel cheesecake

Pumpkin St. Honore

Pumpkin pie (in the shape of a pumpkin)

Cake with candy corn, pumpkins, and cookies!

Fall flower and leaf cake

Pumpkin layer cake

Pumpkin keuglof

Mini-mini pumpkin St. Honores

Fall leaf, pumpkin, and teacup cake

Candy corn cake with rose and pumpkin

Caramel cinnamon tart

Caramel apple pie (in the shape of an apple)

Pumpkin charlotte

Cupcakes!

Fall chocolate cake

Pumpkin keuglof (another view)

Pumpkin swiss roll

Leaf medley cake

Halloween bonbon charlotte

More cupcakes!

Thank you to Paris Miniatures (http://parisminiatures.blogspot.com/) for inspiring me to make these tiny pastries! Please visit the blog and etsy links to see some of their incredible fall 2015 pastries!

Woodchucks!

You might be familiar with this adorable mammal from seeing pictures of it on groundhog day. These groundhogs, or woodchucks, are field dwellers whose hibernation patterns influenced the rise of groundhog day.

 

Woodchucks' primary diet consists of grass. Since grass does not have great nutritional value, woodchucks must eat immense portions of it. They spend their whole summer and autumn gorging themselves, building up fat reserves for the winter hibernation. Their main foraging times are in the morning and afternoon. Forage sessions usually last no more than two hours.

 After the first frost, woodchucks retire to their burrows to sleep the winter away. During hibernation, their heart rate falls very low, and their body temperature is about that of their burrow. Their only means of staying alive is through their fat reserves. Thus, they must lower their heart rates to at most four beats per minute. The burrows they dig are five to thirty feet deep, which is why woodchucks are sometimes considered pests if they dig burrows in a person's front yard. The burrows are full of complex passages, chambers, and escape holes. In spring, woodchucks give birth to litters of of about six kits. They are solitary animals, meaning that their mates do not stay with them to tend the offspring.

When a woodchuck spots a predator such as a hawk,  fox, or raccoon, it will release a sharp whistle. This is a warning to other woodchucks so they can dash into their safe burrows. 

Invasive Species Alert: Nutria!

 

 This bizarre creature might appear to be an alien cross between a woodchuck, a beaver, and a mouse. In fact, it is a nutria, an invasive semi-aquatic rodent. It is the only member of the family Myocastoridae. Its scientific name, Myocastor coypus, translates from Greek to 'mouse beaver.' 

Nutria are smaller than beavers, and larger than muskrats. The only difference between the nutria and these two animals is that its tail is round with minute hairs like a mouse's tail. Its forepaws have five toes, four of which have claws, and the other one reduced to a stub. They use these paws to dig for roots in swamps, which is their primary diet. Nutria also feed on aquatic plants, consuming about 25 percent of their body weight daily. The hindfeet are webbed to assist in swimming. This combination of foot types enables the nutria to both walk on land and swim in water. Though they are suited to do both, nutria are most at home in aquatic environments. Nutria breed year round and are extremely prolific, producing around two litters a year, each containing 1-13 young. 

 

Baby nutria

 Because they are so prolific, nutria are becoming a threat to aquatic ecosystems. Native to South America and introduced to Europe, North America, and Asia, nutria are invasive species. They were first imported for their fur, but escaped from these fur farms and began to breed. Since they reproduce rapidly, nutria population exploded and expanded. This is a problem of increasing concern, since they devour aquatic plants, which are food for most muskrats and waterfowl. This results in a smaller food supply for native creatures, potentially causing them to die off, while supporting the invasive nutria.

In addition, nutrias' consuming the roots of aquatic plants contributes to soil erosion, harming wetlands and thereby the wetland ecosystem. Their primary predators include alligators, large snakes, and birds of prey. Although they do have natural predators, nutria reproduce so quickly that predation makes very little impact on the population. In addition, according to invasive species expert Dan Murphy, "because of the impact of nutria, the wetland disappeared and what we have now is open water.” If more wetlands continue to disappear, all the animals and plants who dwell in them could become endangered.

 

Today, people have begun efforts to eradicate the nutria. However, these efforts must involve killing them, because, according to biologist Steve Kendrot,  “we are not trying to catch these animals alive to move them somewhere else; unfortunately we don't have a place to take them.” In the past decade, scientists have caught about 15,000 nutria in more than 60,000 hectares of land. While this may seem like a large figure, the eradication project has only begun, and there are far more nutria to remove before wetlands can be restored to their natural state.