High-heel + Shoebox Cake

The statuesque and beautiful Shannon, aka "Gigi", or more plainly "The Giraffe", asked for a special cake for her mom's birthday. Every year, Gigi plans an amazing day for her mom - brunch, pampering, special dinner... What a good daughter! Her mom had never had a "real" custom cake made for her - even for her wedding!! So this was going to be a sweet surprise for her.

Because her mom is such a lovely and feminine lady, Shannon asked for an equally lovely and "girly" cake... so we decided on a high-heel - in pink, of course!

After she picked the style of shoe and wording on the labels, I got started on making the shoe. I made cardboard templates of the sole and heel, based on the measurements of a 9x13" pan. I would be cutting the cake into thirds to layer it for the shoebox, so I needed to figure less than a third of each dimension for the shoe template.

Once the templates were made, I made the fondant and coloured it a soft rosy pink. Then I rolled it out, placed the templates on it, and used a pizza cutter to cut the shapes. I brushed glitter powder on the pieces to give the shoe a satin sheen.

I lay one of Bella's cups on its side because it was the perfect height for the heel and was evenly cylindrical, then slanted a cardboard square on its side to lay the sole on and create the slope of the shoe.

I shaped a heel around a skewer, and added a little square bottom to it in a darker shade of pink. I made the front piece and scrunched a ball of plastic wrap underneath it to keep it curved. I cut a brooch shape in white fondant, studded it with silver dragees, and placed it on the side. I let all the pieces dry for a week.

The shoebox was made of three layers of deep chocolate cake and fresh raspberry buttercream, then covered with sides and tops of white fondant. I had measured the final dimensions of the cake and made rectangular templates to cut the fondant, including extra strips on the top to make it look like a box top.


So far so good, right? Haha.

When I stuck the heel into the top of the box, the extra height from the tip of the skewer snapped the sole in half. Yikes!! I quickly patched the break, but it still looked cracked. I ended up putting another layer of pink fondant on top to cover the break and reinforced the shoe. With stitch details around the perimeter, it ended up working nicely as the insole of the shoe. Disaster averted. Phew.

Last things to make were the labels, which I wrote with edible ink. Voila!


When Shannon told me how much her mom loved the cake, and sent pictures of the celebration, I teared up. What an incredible honour it is to be part of someone's special day...a real blessing.

Happy Birthday, Mrs. Bailey! So glad you enjoyed your day!!