One of my work colleagues reached out to me to ask if I could make a retirement cake for her husband who had retired from Royal Mail after working there for 47 years! I agreed to give it a go.
I started by originally coming up with the below, very poor, mock-up of a cake based on various other cakes I’d found online.
We agreed with the “usual” cake – vanilla sponge, strawberry jam, and vanilla buttercream. The toppers could be whatever I fancied so I went with cartoony postman (one from when he started and one from retiring) and decorations made from fondant.
To go with the main cake, there was also 48 cupcakes. Again, I was told to go with whatever flavours I fancied so we did:
12 x Chocolate
12 x Vanilla
12 x Cookies & Cream
12 x Lemon
The cupcakes were all made with a vegan recipe too so that most people could enjoy cake:
The cakes were topped with flavoured buttercream (made with plant butter) and both edible and non-edible decorations.
I got the post-themed ones from e-bay as they were printed on edible icing paper.
To avoid the toppers from wilting, I made fondant discs to sit between the toppers and the buttercream, and added the toppers just before delivery to keep them as fresh as possible.
Here’s some shots of the fondant decorations “drying out” before being added to the cake.
