Oliver Cast Party Cake

My talented husband is currently playing Bill Sykes (from Oliver) at the local theatre.  Last weekend was the cast party and he signed me up to make the cake. The cake had to serve up to 50 people.  I looked on CakeCentral.com and found a pound cake recipe that made a generous sized cake.  I made 3 - one plain, one chocolate and one lemon flavored. Since it was a free cake, I decided the actors and their families could afford to be guinea pigs! 

It took me a little time to settle on a final design. In the end, I chose the top hat, as it's a main feature of a lot of the characters in the play and the books mirrored the set in the theatre.  I did a good amount of research on how to make the books. If you need some advise let me know.  There are not many tutorials or other resources out there on the web for closed book cakes.

 The hat was sort of modeled after the one Daniel wears.  His was brown with a green sash.  Since the brown would have clashed with my idea, I used a little artistic liscense!

 I just loved this in Black and White!

 The "gold" wrapped, chocolate coins represent the greed of the thieves.  They came from the dollar store.

 The lettering was hand painted with gold dust mixed with vodka.

 The cake board is 3/4" plywood covered in contact paper.  I then put some colored fondant over that.

 I wiped the black of the top hat with a damp paper towel.  I then took bronze dust and used a paper towel to brush it on the hat to give it a scruffy appearance.

I used a hot glue gun to put a piece of ribbon around the edge of the board. In hindsight, green would have looked nicer!

 The entire cake is covered in fondant.

The gold coins really added character. I'm so grateful we found them only hours before the cake was due!

The cake turned out to be a huge hit. Daniel told me that one person almost moved the cake because they thought it was a prop and it was in the way!  Thankfully someone was there to say something!  It's one of the best compliments that I received!