The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

The lamppost from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is one of the most iconic images from my childhood. I first read the book when I was six. We 'studied' it at school, which at Year 2 level meant having the teacher read out small excerpts, watching the cartoon film version and making paper wardrobes.  

Snow for a small child in Western Australia is a thing of dreams, something that only exists in the illustrations of fairy tales. So to walk through a wardrobe and find the snow-covered land of Narnia was the most incredible and magical thing I could imagine. I spent a large portion of my childhood testing the backs of wardrobes. Just in case. 

Inevitably, I went to the school library to loan The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for myself... and found the biggest book I'd ever seen. It was black and musty, with yellow pages and tiny writing. I had never held a book like this in my hands before. I took it home and was overwhelmed by the magical world that existed within it. But I was also six, and it was far too advanced for me. It took me weeks and weeks and multiple loans to read it all, and even then I didn't really understand it. But it was the start of a beautiful relationship with an incredible story, and to this day it remains one of my all-time favourite books. 

It was inevitable then, that I should one day make this:

And it is super easy to make.

Just bake a cake as normal, frost with buttercream icing, then roll out some fondant (I use Orchard White Icing, which you can pick up from the supermarket for under $4).

The easiest way to cover a cake with fondant is to use your rolling pin: pick the fondant up by wrapping it over the pin, and then simply unroll it over the cake to cover. Gently flatten and trim as needed - I would give you more instruction on these finicky details if I actually had anything of relevance to say, but the truth is I don't follow any techniques or guides, I just kinda do stuff and hope it turns out...

Anyway... Use a piping bag to pipe icing into snowballs to cover the cake (your basic mix of icing sugar and water will do the trick - and work as a glue to stick your lamppost together).

And now, the lamppost...

And it's as easy as that! Well, it's as easy as colouring a whole bunch of fondant grey, rolling into random shapes, sticking together, possibly skewering, then painting a giant sugary tooth in with yellow and orange food colouring... which will run, but it's totally cool cos it makes it look more like fire. Well, that's what I tell myself, anyway.

This is the first Narnia themed treat I've made, and it definitely won't be the last!