Clever Cake Studio

This is the first wedding cake I’ve done.  These are obviously daunting because of how important everything is - there are around 150 guests and a tight deadline.  This cake had to travel to another city an hour or so away, so it needed to be structurally sound.  Like with any cake I’ve ever done, there were many lessons in it for me and things I now know to do differently.

The bottom tier is lemon cake with a creamy lemon curd filling.  The second is german chocolate cake with coconut pecan filling, which from the bride’s post-wedding review sounded like it was the crowd favorite.  The top two tiers are vanilla cake with banana creme filling.

This was also my very first attempt at sugarpaste flowers, which are time-consuming but rather wonderful to do. I have a lot of respect for the artists who can make amazingly intricate and realistic sugar flowers.

I have a few progress photos to show how to smooth buttercream.  Basically, after the crumb coat, then the final, thicker base layer, stick it in the fridge to cool for a half hour.  Then, you go and fill a mug with hot water.  Take a spatula knife, dip it in, then tap off excess.  With a very light touch, brush the flat of the knife upwards, just skimming the buttercream.  You’ll feel the buttercream go slick and you can smooth a small area this way, dipping the knife regularly.  You may get a lot of moisture, so make sure to tap off excess water from the knife and make sure you have enough time to let it sit to dry off if there’s too much.

I built up some frosting at the top to support the flowers.

Then, once it’s ready, I wrapped real deep blue ribbon around the base of each tier - no tape is needed, as the frosting clings to the ribbon just fine.  This gave it a nice look, though fondant is a better choice if you can roll and cut it precisely.  It just makes the cake cutting easier.  Once the ribbon is on, I started one the pearl border, and the dots.  Then, arrange the flowers on top.

Some lessons:  If the cake is going to be traveling, then opt for fondant-covered instead of buttercream.  I like to do just buttercream whenever possible - not that it’s the slightest bit easier, but most people don’t like eating fondant.  However, fondant would have been sturdier and held up better to the vibrations of a road trip.  There was a bit of settling, so the buttercream walls weren’t as smooth and flat.

I also would pick a larger base board.  This one was two inches bigger in diameter than the bottom tier, but I’d like to have more space to grip so it would be easier to pick up.  Little details like that - lesson learned.

Still, I was told that it was tasty and the bride was satisfied, so it’s a success.  Next time I’ll know even better.

This was for a friend’s baby girl, who just turned 1.  It’s covered in fondant, with cut-out dots and a pearl border.  The teddy bear and the alphabet blocks are also fondant, hand-painted.  Next time I think I’ll dye the fondant for the bear instead of painting - it gave a neat old-leather-bear look, but not quite the pastel thing I had in mind.

The front side of the blocks have her initials and “1″ for her level score.  The cupcake’s candle, by the way, is this really neat oil candle that actually burns a pink flame!

Here are a couple shots of the cute birthday girl checking out her cupcake.  The cupcake was a low-fat, low-sugar recipe with cream cheese and fruit yogurt frosting, chosen by her mom for her.

This was done for a boy’s birthday party.  I like birthday cakes for kids, there’s so much fun you can have with them and their reactions are most fun.

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I’m still around and this site is still active.  This past month has been pretty quiet, not many cake needs among my friends, but things are kicking off again this weekend.  I’ll be playing with chocolate!

This experiement has definitely taught me a lot about cake making and decorating.  I did everything quite backwards, learning to play with fondant and scultped cake before even taking a basic piping class.  I do plan on taking those standard Wilton Cake Decorating courses they offer at Michaels’ or JoAnn’s stores, which should broaden my skillset.  I’ve figured out much of it on my own, but I expect the classes to be useful.

I’ve gotten contacted by several people new to ‘doing cakes’ and have one particularly useful thing to tell them: The internet is awesome.  There are so many great websites with tutorials, not only in writing but also in videos.  A search on Youtube brings up some good ones on learning to roll fondant and some piping techniques.  Books and magazines are very nice, but just flip through them at the store for some inspiration.  If they don’t have any really detailed, specific techniques being illustrated, then skip it, it’s an expensive art book.  Save your money wherever possible - you’ll need it!

Fondant isn’t cheap, especially when you’re just starting out.  The easiest fondant to find is usually Wilton brand, but it tastes like old bland gum.  Mix in a bit of vanilla or almond extract to help it out, and use it for all your practicing until you either find a better supplier or learn to make your own (no need ot rush on this, some professionals never bother).

Don’t worry about using box cake mixes, provided that it’s a cake that doesn’t need to hold an unusual shape or more than a few layers.  I usually substitute some of the water for milk, maybe add some more extracts for flavoring, or if it’s chocolate I add some dark cocoa powder.   I also don’t use very thick layers of frosting, to help balance the over-sweetness of the mix.  But mixes are cheap and easy and consistant, and it’s hard enough learning to decorate a cake - you don’t need to also spend more time trying to perfect a recipe.

When you need a recipe that can withstand sculpting or stacking, then you need something more like pound cake.  If you already have a recipe for an amazing, moist and fine pound cake, try it!  Otherwise, just do a search for “sculpted cake recipe” and you’ll find some forums and websites with lots of advice and recipes.  See which you like best, and experiment till you have your own. Lots of professionals doctor a cake mix to get the right density, because it saves a lot of money.  Making anything from scratch will generally cost more and take more persistent effort, but it feels good to know that when they compliment a cake, it’s ALL you.

Generally I find that the tasty cakes that still feel soft (fine crumb) and moist in the mouth often brown easily on the outside, so I have to plan to trim all the outside off when I’m figuring out how much and of what size to bake.  I’m still trying to find the ‘right’ recipe for me.  It can take awhile.  I’m also insanely picky.

I can’t say not to worry about your mistakes, because I sure have cried a lot over my own.  This is art, and cooking, and it’s on a deadline.  You’re hoping to please other people by how it looks and how it tastes. It’s stressful.  Go ahead and cry.  But then get back to work.  Don’t give up.  Cakes are not for inflexible people, or for those unable to handle new situations and emergencies.  Be creative, be clever.  You can cry while you do it, but as Tim Gunn says, “Make it work!”

I would recommend not talking too much about details before the cake is done, if you can avoid it.  As a beginner, you need flexibility.  I’ve been lucky enough to have friends who have been pretty broad in their comissions - “something to do with chemistry and science,” “something from Katamari” or “a dragon.”  Those are nice.  You need to be willing and able to shift your plans based on how things are working out.  The dead cow cake was originally supposed to be quite well and alive, but the head refused to stay on the body.  I didn’t have a good enough support structure, so it fell over, taking a good chuck on body with it.  I went comatose for about a half hour with my husband trying (very valiiantly) to cheer me up and inspire me to try something else.  Fortunately, the friend it was for has a very big sense of humor and liked the idea of a dead cow trussed up for dinner.

Almost every cake is different from how I originally pictured it in my mind.  Most of the time, I like the outcome even better.  But this is why I generally avoid making very detailed sketches, and try to feel out how flexible the person is.  It’s very difficult to make a cake that’s exactly what the perosn wanted and pictured, particularly if they really had an exact outcome in mind.  So we must bow our heads in respect to the pros who has been able to consistently manage this.

I’ve never claimed to be professional, which is useful.  It keeps my cakes off Cake Wrecks (for now) and my mistakes aren’t as big a deal (to everyone else anyhow).  Speaking of that blog, it’s one of those things that you will be told about ten times a month once the news that you’re doing cakes is out.  You’ll also hear about the show Ace of Cakes on Food Network, as well as any number of their Cake Challenges.  Don’t get annoyed, it’s just the way it goes.  All those shows and the blog are awesome, they really do help inspire you.  Once you learn to watch closely enough, you’ll learn some good techniques too.  Cake Wrecks is great for reminding you that, not matter how bad you may sometimes think you are, there are people out there doing far, far worse and getting paid for it.  So buck up.

I’m not sure I ever want to go pro.  I’m happy taking my small commissions here and there.  Ace of Cakes talks about that often - if it’s your job to do cakes, well then, it’s going to feel like a job.  You may love it enough to overcome that, but a lot of professionals don’t even like eating cake anymore, they get sick of it.  I still think about it.  I think about opening a little restaurant or a catering/event business too.  But these are, while interesting and doable for me, very exhausting and stressful.  It’s one thing to stress over a cake/party/food for a loved one, but something else entirely to feel the same priority for a cranky, picky stranger who doesn’t understand the work involved.

Enjoy making cakes, enjoy eating them (till you get tired of sweet things) and keep reminding yourself that it’s supposed to be fun.  It takes time to develop skills, so make sure you’re amused by the journey.

Now with added instructions on how to make your own corset cake!

This is my first attempt at a corset cake, and it came with many learnings (I made a lot of mistakes). I shall share these with you, so that we may better the world together by bringing forth greater sexy cakes.

First of all, do NOT use a soft cake recipe or a cake mix for a cake that needs to hold its shape. Even if it’s not very tall and doesn’t have a lot to support, you should really stick with a recipe that’s between cake and pound cake, with a fine crumb (texture). Because fondant is heavy, and soft cakes just aren’t made for it.  Do some searches for doctored cake mixes or just use a favorite moist pound cake.

You can look at the original shape of the cake with only the crumb-coat right here compared to the completed cake at top, and you may notice how much bigger the boobs used to be. That poor torso went from a D to an A-cup, due to these two problems. Likely just having the better cake recipe would have helped tremendously. I also might consider doing the fondant over the boobs separately to get the shape just right. It’s an idea, anyhow. I plan on doing another corset cake in the future, and hope that it will have a whole lot more outrageous va-VOOM to it

Secondly, I envy those of you with air conditioning. Even with a bunch of fans blowing around, I realized very quickly that trying to decorate a cake in the heat of summer is a very unpleasant experience. The fondant is softer, which makes it easier to work with, but then it wasn’t holding it’s ‘pinstripe’ look as well.

So anyhow. On to the fun stuff!

Preparing the Cake:  This was made with several rectangular sheet cakes layered with buttercream and stacked together firmly, placed on a flat cardboard sheet, then wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen overnight.  Freezing locks in moisture and makes carving it MUCH easier!  As a hint, make it taller that you think you really need, and you can use the trimmings to create some added height for the tummy and breasts to avoid a lot of waste.

Carving:  I use a non-serrated, very sharp chef’s knife for most of the carving, plus some smaller knives for more detailed work.  I also have a soft brush (make sure the bristles won’t come out) and a can of compressed air to remove excess crumbs.  I wanted to really make this feel 3D, as a lot of corset cakes I’ve seen tend to be rather boxy and the front is too flat.  Don’t be afraid of curves!  She should be well rounded at all sides, no sudden angles.  I added an extra strip of cake down the stomach to carve into a more realistic shape and was really happy with it, as well as the curve of the hips and how well the fondant hugged them.  Check out photos of curvy burlesque ladies to get an idea of the classic corset shapes, there are many options to choose from! Some highlight the seperate breast bumps, others are a more solid bosum.

Cake is forgiving - if you trim off a bit too much, you can use buttercream ‘glue’ to pad some more cake back.  It’s messy work!  If the cake is getting soft and crumbly, put it back in the freezer for awhile.

Remember that the buttercream top layer and the fondant are going to soften all the curves and angles, so be dramatic with the cake shape.  Indentations should be deeper than you really want them, and differences in curves/angles more drastic.  Otherwise, when the fondant is laid on, you’ll lose all those careful details that make it more realistic!

Buttercream Top Cover:  Once you’ve got the cake shape you want, let it freeze a bit longer, then use the compressed air and/or brush to remove excess crumbs gently.  Cover it in a thin layer of buttercream (crumb coat), chill it, then cover it in about 1/4″ of buttercream.  You shouldn’t see any crumbs now on the cake or the board, and make sure to clean up your workspace.  At this point, if you want to decorate the cake with buttercream, do so!  My further instructions are for fondant.

Coloring Fondant:  As I did not pre-dye the fondant (which may be the best way to get a clean look, so I recommend that), I had to paint it afterwards.  The painting (done in this photo by Pip, who was helping me that day) on this cake is just food coloring (the concentrated gels, not the usual stuff from the grocery) and water, which leaves it shiny but tacky and difficult to work with. You should use tiny amounts of grain alcohol instead to thin the dye.  This is where having a food-grade airbrush would be kinda awesome, but oh well!  I get new tools slowly.  You can also pick up some of those cans of food dye sprays they sell at many grocery stores now for cake decorating.  Or try finding some edible luster dusts I work with what I have.

Fondant:  I recommend making your own fondant or buying a non-Wilton variety, which will taste better and be much less stiff to work with.  If you use Wilton, pre-blend it with some added vanilla and almond extracts to improve the flavor. If you pre-dye the fondant, you’ll have to use your own judgment as to how much of each color to use - that’s partly why I just did it all in white, and then painted it afterwards.  I had a limited amount of fondant that day and didn’t want any to get wasted.

I got a roller (a Wilton brand tool) that let me do this pinstrip effect. You’ll want to press deeply, because of how it flattens a bit when painted or laid out over the cake. There are many other things you can do to the fondant before applying it to the cake to add design elements, like stamps or texture mats.  It really ups the realism, so play around with some fondant and various tools to see what textures you can do.  Even stuff around the house can work to mimic the look of different fabrics or materials on fondant.

I made a guess on the shape, and rolled it out carefully onto the cake to avoid air bubbles - it’s more important to get the edge on the top right, as you can trim the edges at the bottom of the cake much more easily.  The second one was easier, since I learned from the first about what shape to cut.  Don’t forget to roll on the pinstripes (or whatever other design/texture, if you’re pre-stamping!). Once you’ve laid down both side pieces, then make the middle (which should be slightly thicker at the top to allow for stretching it over the chest).  Don’t worry about make it too long, the top and bottoms are easy to trim.  It should slightly overlap onto the side panels.  You can use scissors to trim the extra, but let it stay slightly overlapped because the fondant will settle and may slide apart. You’ll have to do some funny wiggling and gentle stretching of the fondant to get it to ‘hug’ the breast mounds in the way you want.

For the bottom of the corset, I just used a panel of fondant.  You could also just use dark buttercream, as the fondant sometimes slides off at such sharp angles.  The top part, you have some options.  As I was focusing on the article of clothing, I just filled in the top with ‘whipped cream’ looking fondant.  The disembodied breasts seemed weird to me, but you could make breasts if you like. I’ve even seen someone just squeeze a couple of oranges there!  What nice, healthy breasts those make

Moving the Cake:  I would move the cake onto it’s final tray at this point, if it’s not already.  Keep it on the cardboard!  Trim the board till it’s tucked under the layer of fondant.  Place a couple little dollops of stiff buttercream onto the middle of the display tray, and then place the cake with it’s cardboard bottom on it.  Wiggle it gently to let it settle down, and the buttercream should keep it in place.  Fix up the fondant if you need to get it looking the way you like.  The cardboard should not be visible (any visible areas can be covered up in decorating).

Decorating:  Once the fondant is on, and had a half hour to finish settling, then first check it over to trim any extra fondant hanging over, or see where you need to hide any areas that the fondant isn’t covering.  Use decorating to hide the flaws - make lace, braided ropes, etc, with fondant, or pipe buttercream edgings, and so on.  Flowers, jewels, naughty toys (making a riding crop ahead of time out of sugarpaste would be amazing)… The options are endless.  I was under a time restraint so went for simplicity.  The little red studs/gems is a sparkling red gel icing.  If I had more time, I would have piped on some delicate lacing work in the center panel instead.

Show Me! Post up a link to your results.  I’d love to see them! :)  Feel free to ask any questions.

This little fella was for a young man’s birthday. It’s a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting. For a tastier result, I used marzipan (a sweet almond paste) rather than fondant for the scales, which were just individually shaped by hand and applied. You can get a more refined look by rolling out and cookie-cutting smaller circles, but I didn’t mind the more imperfect cartoony look for this one. I made little wings as well, probably the only thing distinguishing it from a dinosaur. The eyes and claws are fondant, simply because I wanted them to be very white, and marzipan is that light beige-almond color.

I brushed on silver luster dust to give it that fantasy shimmery look. If you mix luster dust with a tiny bit of grain alcohol, you get an edible metallic paint, which would be another way to go for a bigger wow.

How are these for cute baby shower cupcakes? The new mom and dad are both geeks and gamers, and babies are both adorable and delicious, so pikmin seemed a perfect choice.

The cake is a simple vanilla-almond with simple whipped icing. The pikmin themselves are made of marzipan, which is a nice sweet almond paste. It’s easy to mold, doesn’t dry hard, and is much more tasty than fondant (no matter how much flavoring you try and add).

The pikmin were a process to make. I had originally intended on them being much, much smaller and then ‘burying’ them into the center of the cupcake (digging a hole for them to fit) so that just their ’stems’ would be showing. It would be very true to the game, but I’d have to put floral wire in the stems to keep them upright. I didn’t want to put anything inedible in them, so I tried this instead. Ended up being fun to give them all some personality (for plantlike drones).

I used the same cake recipe I had been using for the past several cakes, which is a middle ground between standard cake and pound cake, so it’s denser and better able to withstand sculpting or the weight of tiers. In a slice of cake, you don’t always notice that, but in a cupcake, it stood out. But it was complimented, people liked that it was a richer, firmer cake. Coolness.

This was a small cake done for a friend, who commissioned it as an anniversary surprise for his wife. The cake inside is vanilla with a pale orange cream filling. Their wedding colors had been deep and light purple (lavender and lilacs), very classic and clean.

The design is pretty straightforward and simple: two tiers of square cake covered in icing and white fondant with twined ‘rope’ and flowers, all fondant. Then on top, a white box, within he hid another present to her, some custom jewelry. Seriously! How sweet is that?