Ladies, you'll love this cake. It's a cake sculpted like a handbag. We learned to make that in a Sunday workshop at Cake Creations Dessert Haven.

My friend Joy and I started taking classes there in January. The basic classes were one night a week, but now the more advanced sculpting classes are best done as a half day or full day workshop.

My first adventure in sculpting (think: Ace of Cakes) was last month, when we did the Mad Hatter cake. The principles remain the same, but we learned some tricks particular to this shape of cake.

The first thing you should do for this (or any) cake decorating is sketch out the design on a piece of paper. Better yet, bring in a model, as some students did.

The cake ladies said there are two ways to do this cake: either cut a round cake in half and match both pieces together vertically (those are the half circle cakes you see at Safeway all the time), or stack pieces of cake a three or four tiers high. Then just grab a serrated knife and shape away.

I prefer the round cake method. That's more structurally stable. And I'm just lazy, because if you stack cakes three or four layers high, it becomes heavy. If you have four layers, you should cardboard in the middle and dowel to prevent from sinking and slipping.

Either way, you have to stick the cake layers together with some frosting and, if appropriate, filling. Obviously, filling will slip out of the round cake, since the cake layers are vertical, so you can't do filling for the round cake.

The basic principle for sculpting is that the bottom is always the widest part of the cake, for stability. We shaved our purses down on all four sides for that reason.

I made mine like a Kelly bag, but others wanted a satchel or a more bohemian look, so some people's cakes were a little curved in the middle. One student made a clutch, so he didn't even need to make the handles. You get the idea. It's whatever you want.

Handles are made using floral wire. The teacher didn't know what gauge, but she said she found these near the floral tape at Flora Dec. Sorry, you will have to experiment or call Cake Creations! I do know it was extremely soft and easy to bend.

If you make handles, color the fondant first then roll it into an oval. Push the wire into the middle. Roll it out and break off the excess at the end. Keep doing this until you get the handles as thin as you want. Don't go too thin, though.

Leave two inches of wire at the end to poke into the cake. I didn't leave enough and my handles flop over after a while.
As with any sculptured cake, freeze it for an hour after you cut it, so that the cake sets. It gets soft after you cut it.

Bring it out and crumb coat it. Then freeze for another hour to let the frosting harden before you roll on the fondant. If you don't have time, then just freeze it for 30 minutes or till it feels like it's getting hard.

When you roll on the fondant, smooth out the edges of the purse first so it doesn't ruffle. Do it gently. I actually found this shape easier to cover in fondant, than the typical round cakes. Then decorate it as you wish!

This took Joy and me about two hours to do. We think the purse is simpler than the Mad Hatter. And so much more chic!