Alphabet Block Cake Topper - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

I am using an easy 3-ingredient rice bubble mixture to keep this cake topper nice and light. Since I can't make it along to my friend's baby daughter's naming ceremony, I'm pleased that my cake topper can represent my wish to be there. As I don't know what type of cake it's going to decorate I need to ensure it's big enough to have presence, but without too much heaviness that could weigh down soft icing or sponge. Kids love to eat this rice bubble treat too, so you can sidetrack them with this and keep your yummy underneath cake for the adults!

Rice Bubble Treats
50g butter

200g white and pink marshmallows (use Mr Mallow brand - trust me, some others do not work)

160g rice bubbles

Melt butter slowly in a pot on a medium heat, add the marshmallows and mix through the butter. This will start to melt the marshmallows. Keep stirring for 1 minute further, then take off the heat and stir in rice bubbles to coat. Work quickly while this mixture is still warm to shape it as needed. For my alphabet topper I roughly pushed some mixture together into a 10cm-ish square block-like shape. Once cool, carve slightly to acheive the desired shape. In my case this was flat even sides. Smart phones nowadays have free level applications if you want to get really technical!. Any leftovers from carving can be resoftened in the microwave and reshaped while still warm. This mixture is ideal for edible decorations that could otherwise be difficult, like standing animals.

Thinly coat your shape with buttercream or truffle or ganache to fill the exterior holes and to act as a glue before covering in a thick sheet of your choice of coloured Fondant Icing. For this block I wrapped a 40x10cm rectangle around the 4 sides and cut a 10cm square to go top and bottom. I used my cake smoothers to get a nice finish on all sides.

For the 5 letter 'C's I coloured 5 small amounts of white fondant with gel paste. I actually cheated and used a circle cutter then the back end of a random icing bag tip to cut out the centre. I kept the centre circles for my friend to use as additional scatter decorations to marry the block with her cake nicely. One cut from a sharp knife turned the resulting 'O's into 'C's.

* This also happens to be a favourite slice recipie for a Canadian friend of mine who mixes in 1/2 a cup of candy with the rice bubbles (you could use any combo of choc/lollies/dry fruit/nuts) and presses it all into a greased sponge roll tin. Great for lunchboxes!