Monday 14 November 2011

80th Birthday Cake

I think this has been my most ambitious cake yet.  A two tiered birthday cake decorated with lots and lots of tiny flowers in a swag effect around both tiers along with butterflies on wires coming out of the middle of the top tier.

It turned out very well and I was very pleased with it.  It was for my friends mum whose birthday it was and they all loved it and apparently it all got eaten which is always a good sign!

I started making the flowers on Sunday evening and had 3 foam sheets worth of them done, far too many for the cake, but just in case any broke as they can be  very delicate when set and easily snap.  Each one was cut out and then a tiny 'pearl' was set into the middle of each flower.  Each butterfly was also painted with edible glitter down the centre of the body.  To say it was time consuming is a slight understatement!!

The bottom tier was baked on and iced separately in order to give the icing time to set.  The top tier again was done separately.  I got some strange looks when I explained that there were actually straws in the middle of the bottom tier but these make great support structures for when you have a heavy second cake layer to put on top.  Just insert them and simply snip to the right height.

All the flowers were glued on by hand and each one had to be pressed gently in place until the edible glue slightly set them.  The swags were done by marking off a cross vertically and horizontally on the cake so you got 4 points.  I put a pin on each marker point and then with a long necklace pinned a link and then draped the chain to meet the next pin and then pinned the link etc.  Once done I traced round the swag with a scriber tool to give me the outline to following with the flowers.

The butterflies on the topper I cut a little thicker out of sugarpaste so I could insert a wire dipped in edible food glue in the body post.  These were then set in a food grade food post that you insert into the cake.

I took quite a few pics!!!









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