The 16th August this year marked 40 years since Elvis died. I couldn’t let this anniversary slide without some fanfare.
There are some icons of pop culture who transcend the traditional rules of mortality – Elvis and I never shared a timeline but his music and his legend will be here long after I shuffle off this mortal coil. Icons are immortal and live on for generations of fans to fall in love with them decades after they are gone. It’s almost a push to remember that they were human.
How could I not be a little bit in love with Elvis? The tale of the little boy in a hardware shop, talked out of buying a gun with his birthday money and steered towards a guitar instead, is so far removed from my own experiences that it may as well be a fairytale. I’ve tried to imagine the impact of seeing Elvis and those famous dance moves in a time where nothing like it had been seen before. I’ve tried to imagine just how shocking and ground-breaking it all must have been, living in a time of ‘uh, thankyouverymuch’ and that brilliant episode of Father Ted where all three priests dress as Elvis for a talent show.
My tribute to The King of Rock’n’Roll appears as a tutorial in the current issue of Cake Decorating Heaven. I would love to bake a cake for Elvis Presley and, in some small way, I guess I have.
The tutorial is essentially a masterclass in royal icing flooding techniques, which enable you to put literally any design on a cake. Silhouettes are super easy providing you have a strong enough shape to work with. Elvis is a pretty strong image to work with!
You can pick up a copy of Cake Decorating Heaven in larger supermarkets and newsagents OR you can read this tutorial for free on the Cake Decorating Heaven website! Just click here or on any of the pictures in this post.
In the meantime, I will continue my little fantasy of sitting down with Elvis over a slice of Red Velvet Cake, amidst the opulent chaos of Graceland. I’d try to engineer a little sing-song together and I’d ask him how he was doing. Maybe he would let me shoot his television – I’ve often wanted to shoot my own when some terrible reality show has been on, but do not own a gun and lack the funds to replace the telly.
Stay gorgeous!
Cxx
