This is such a lovely book and one of my sons favourites when he was little and I think most children will have come across it somewhere. It is even a West End Theatre show. I was so happy when a client came to me and asked me to make a cake themed around it for her daughter.

She wanted me to keep the decor in the same illustrated style as the book so all credit to Judith Kerr and the team. Elements that had to be included were the little girl at the door with the tiger, some balloons and the tiger playing his trumpet. I used the technique of cutting out the shapes from icing and then hand painting them in the same colours as the book. Above is my very sketchy drawing, with lots of scribbles!

I loved some of the retro details in the drawings. You can see here some of the images I used resting on the base board which I have hand painted in the same detail as the carpet from the book. I didn’t want anything to be too neat and perfect. I enlarged images from the book on my photocopier and then cut round them on pieces of floral paste to make cutouts.

I’ve always loved images of messy paint palettes and if you know me or follow my http://www.instagram.com #rachellesbespokecakes you will know that I’m always taking pictures of them too. Here is a mixture of the colours I used. All slightly dirty and not too bright, just like the book.

Above are all the little pieces I have painted ready to go onto the cake, i wanted them to have that ‘handpainted’ look so I kept the colours all wishy washy. I used water and sugarflair paste colours to do this and let them all dry completely before adding to the cake.

Here is the final cake I made for Tillys first Birthday, I hope you like it. I loved it!

All credit to the illustrations and content of the book ‘The Tiger That Came To Tea By Judith Kerr’.