Ladybird, ladybird

I made a ladybird cake for Eva to bring to school for her birthday. I baked a plain madeira cake in my stainless steel mixing bowl to get a dome shape. The dome turned out a bit too flat though, so I will be keeping my eyes out for a smaller mixing bowl, to produce more defined dome shaped cakes for future ladybirds!

I leveled and torted the cake and filled and crumb coated it with strawberry jam. Then I covered a third in black fondant, and another two thirds in red. I used pre-dyed fondant, because black and red are the hardest colours to tint. Then I added the spots and the eyes. I think I should have added a mouth, but had no idea how a ladybird's mouth is supposed to look like!

I covered the board with green fondant and used two balls of black fondant and curled wires for the antennae. Since I couldn't decide where to write Eva's name, I used some cupcakes instead for writing her name and also for sticking in the candles.