Don Quixote Cake - La Mancha Windmill #1: Part 1: Stucco-effect

I thought it couldn’t hurt to share how I achieved the stucco effect on my Don Quixote cake. It is a pretty simple technique, and to honest, I had fun doing it.

Cover a double-barrel cake first in chocolate fondant, then in white fondant. Wrap each layer of fondant around the barrel because 1. trying to cover over by going over the top on a double-barrel is awful; and, 2. the roof covers the top so you don’t have to worry about it! :) The best part is that you don’t have to worry about seams, the ‘stucco’ will cover them!
Cut squares out of cardstock to cut-out the windows and using an exacto knife, trace the cardstock and cut them out. Do the same for the door and the window above the door. You can use a boning tool to soften the edges around the windows and the door. You may also choose to add a wood-grain texture to the door of the windmill.

To achieve the stucco, you will want to made a batch of royal icing. Using an offset spatula apply royal icing the cake, work in small areas at a time. This helps to avoid having the royal icing dry out too quickly.

A sponge works wonderfully to achieve the stucco effect, this is done so by “stippling” the royal icing with the sponge. If the icing looks like it is drying out, you can lightly dip the sponge in a LITTLE bit of water to keep the icing moist. Start with just a very damp sponge, you can always add a little more water at a time, but if you add too much water, you could end up with drippy, soupy royal icing (technical terms), this would be bad. However, if that does happen, just wipe it off and apply more … and get a new sponge! Keep working your way around the cake until it is done.

Here is the finished stucco-ing (that may not be a word).

Hopefully this helps a few of you out there. I’ll work on Part 2 – the windmill roof and blades.
Thanks for looking. :)