The adventure of trying to make a house a home that we built for our family of six plus some craft, home décor, recipes & any family fun we might have.

Monday 13 February 2012

BIRTHDAY CAKE - there goes the diet

Good morning, I hope that you all had an enjoyable weekend. We were able to catch up with family yesterday to celebrate Viveca's, Oomies (my mothers), Poppy's (my father) and Hudson's birthdays. I made 2 cakes, this allowed me to feed 12 people while still having leftover cake for school lunches and afternoon tea's. Since Wednesday 8th February I have made and decorated 3 cakes. I didn't want to give you too much information so I'm going to give you the step by step process of how I decorated the 'Handbag' cake. I will also provide additional photographs of the other cakes just so you can see what they looked like.
These images were taken by Ruth Black

Step 1: prepare your favourite cake according to your recipe.
Step 2: grease your cake tin really, really well. If your cake tin isn't greased well enough you may leave half your cake behind when it comes time to turn it out.
Step 3: bake the cake for the required time and set aside to cool.
Step 4: if you have the time allow your cake it sit for a few hours (over night) so that the edges dry out, this will make icing easier.
Step 5: place cake on the cake stand, making sure its centred.

 




Step 6: make your butter icing, colour it and then cover your cake with icing. If you have a cake that requires more than one colour mix all your colours at once especially if you need a shade lighter or darker.

Step 7: the next phrase is to decorate the cake with lollies, pearls, ribbon etc.

To create a Pearl trim: use some tweezers to pick up the individual pearls. Place them in the position that they are required and press down gently.

                                                  
To make the flower: take your marshmallow and cut it down the centre of each one (I used 1 white and 3 pink marshmallow's). With one half of the white marshmallow place the cut section into the pearls and press down so that the pearls stick to it, then place it on the cake. For the petals I placed a little bit of icing on the rough side and then placed each one around the white centre.
     



To decorate edges with lollies: arrange your lollies either by pattern, colour, shape etc on to the top of your counter and place them within easy reach. Take a small amount of your icing and using a knife spread an even amount of icing along the side of the cake, making sure that the edges meet the top. Next, place your lollies in position and press them firmly to make sure they stick. Some lollies may need icing on their back to help with their placement.




















To make crown Jewell's: take a white marshmallow and cut it down the centre, place the gem (different coloured lolly) onto the sticky side of the marshmallow and then spread a little bit of icing on the rough side of the marshmallow before placing it in position.





Step 8: have a look over the cake and smooth out any imperfections. Top the cake with its candles and its ready to go.

Important note to remember when using butter frosting, don't have it too runny because your lollies/decorations won't stay in place for long - they'll slide. It's better to have it stiff as it's more usable.

The handbag that everyone thought was a bell with a flower


The crown I'd coloured the cake pink and purple so when you cut into it you got to see the patterns


and the Butterfly this was the hardest one to decorate !!


I hope that you have enjoyed my little presentation on 'how to decorate a birthday cake'. I would like to thank the lovely ladies at Sugarland Cake Toppers, Brisbane who helped save my butterfly cake. Your advise was what saved this little butterflies life. I'd also like to thank my sister Renee who helped me with the finishing touches on the crown, without her help my cake decorating projects would have failed. And lastly, thankyou to the 5 children who all came back for seconds (pretty sure they just wanted the LOLLIES). I hope this helps a little with any of your future cake decorating projects....

Megan

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