This past week I have been assembling the Christening cake, and when working on a large cake I always make sure that I give myself as much time as possible to ensure that the finished item never looks rushed.
On Monday night I baked the lemon drizzle cake, and on Tuesday I covered the cake, added the white stripes and put the ribbon around the cake board and the cake itself. I was very impressed with how well the double sided sticky take worked on the cake board, and the ribbon looked fantastically flat and smooth all the way around, which gave the cake a really professional finish. My template for the stripes was also a success as all of the stripes were equal in size and then trimmed to fit once they had been applied using the sugar glue, which gave a very neat edge to the top of the cake.
Tip: Last time I tried to poke through the greaseproof paper with a cocktail stick to mark on where everything should go but this did leave some holes in the wrong places. This time I used an edible pen to mark on the placement underneath the paper, which could easily be covered up with the icing stripes.
Usually I would continue the icing of the cake board down over the sides, however as I usually use ribbon to neaten the edge, I decided not to do this. I used small pieces of double sided sticky tape to attach the ribbon in place, peeling them off as I went round and smoothing the ribbon down, and this worked very well.
On Thursday, all that I had left to do was to add the decoration that I had worked on the weekend before. By this point, everything including the bible had dried sufficiently which makes it a lot easier to work with. I stuck the buttons to the side of the cake using the sugar glue, placed the letters, checked the spelling (A very important part!) and then stuck these down, and then finally added the Bible to the top. I had a few buttons left over so I decided to stick a few to the top, giving a scattered design which I think tied the top and bottom of the cake together.
Placing the Buttons: Originally on the design, the buttons were going to be on one level all the way around the cake sitting half on the ribbon. However once I added the stripes to the cake, I realised that they pushed the ribbon away from the surface of the cake, leaving a gap. I then decided to stick two buttons to each white stripe just above the ribbon, and then one white button in the centre of them on the blue section. By the time I had finished, this gave the cake a very pretty slightly higgledy-piggledy design, which I thought looked very cute for a little boys cake.
Tip: As you go around, go back and check that your buttons are at the correct height as gravity will work its magic on the side of a cake! if they have slipped, gently push them back to the desired position until the glue is sticky enough to hold them in place.
Placing the letters: Even though I know how to spell (...!), I always place my letters to check the positioning and layout before I go ahead and stick them permanently. Sugar glue is fantastic, but it does take a little while to dry and with coloured icing such as blue, it does tend to take on the colour, so try and be as neat as possible to make sure that the colour doesn't show up on other lighter colours.
The finished cake in the box: I was really pleased with the final appearance of the cake, and it fitted perfectly in the size of box ordered as I hadn't added any extra width with the icing over the side of the board. I though the colours all worked really well together, tying in the scheme of the occasion and the design. The bible was the finishing touch, and I think the little details such as the pearls and the gold page edges worked really well to make sure that the celebration cake was that little bit more special.
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