This past weekend I was working on two individual 4 inch cakes that were to be given as presents for my Nan's friends. I haven't made many small cakes before and I enjoyed getting to grips with baking in a smaller scale. Like my bitesize cupcakes that I made for the Afternoon Tea Cake, I have learnt that it's just the same as large-scale baking, only any mistakes look much bigger!
After I had baked the cakes, I made a start on the decorations. I wanted to do a mixture of floral and stripe decoration for the cakes, so I decided to do a stripy cake board and icing top. I used my tappit stripe cutter to cut strips of icing...
...and then cut each strip into three again using the cutter to get nice sharp and straight edges.
I then rolled out the base colour to a little thicker than normal and laid the strips evenly over the top.
I then simply rolled the strips into the icing until it was the correct thickness. I was a little worried that they wouldn't stick and would peel, however the moisture that remained in the icing helped the two colours to stick together.
Once I had the correct thickness and size, I gently brushed a layer of water over the top of the cake board, and draped the icing over the top, trimming the excess with a sharp knife.
I did the same with the pink cake board, and then edged both boards with complimentary ribbon attached with double sided sticky tape.
Once baked, I trimmed the cakes into two layers (I noticed I got a very good rise using a deeper but smaller cake tin) and then layered and filled them with vanilla buttercream and strawberry jam.
I wanted to mix the smooth fondant top and board with a naked cake texture, so I left the sides bare. I was a little unsure of the mixture of textures when I had finished, but apparently they went down very well, so maybe I should experiment more in the future!
For the top of the cake I repeated the striped process and cut out a circle for the top using a 4 inch circle cutter.
I placed the disk of striped sugar paste on top of the cake...
...and then put the cake on the cake board, trying to make sure that the stripes were at right angles to add a little interest! (I may, possibly, slightly, almost have dropped the cake on its side on the counter whilst moving it, but we don't have to talk about that, shhhh!)
I used my tappits again to create the letters and I had a little more luck this time using them. Thickness of the sugar paste and time left to dry is definitely the key, and they appeared to be a little neater than before, which I was very pleased with.
I made the flowers for both cakes the week before and set the large daisies in my new paint palette, which gave them a lovely cupped shape. I then added a smaller daisy inside and sat a sugar pearl on top which I was really happy with, I thought they looked very sweet!
I then repeated the process with the pink cake and attached my hand moulded miniature roses to the top with edible glue and around the bottom of the cake using buttercream.
I was really happy with my finished cakes and I was very glad to hear that the recipients loved them. I really hope they tasted as good as they looked, but I was very happy with their pretty floral and bold stripe decorations.
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