Birthday cake icing for allergic toddler

morganlefay

My just-going-to-be 2 granddaughter is having a birthday party next Monday and I get to make the cake. She is VERY allergic to egg but I have several nice cake recipes which don't use egg. BUT I would have made her a tiger face cake with fondant icing and put coloured stripes in it to look tigery. She will have to have butter icing instead and I am wondering if I can get food colours and paint a stripey effect onto the butter icing iyswim, or would the butter make the colour not stick properly, or run everywhere ? If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can make a lovely iced cake for a little girl who loves tigers or elephants or bears I would be so grateful. I used to make a wonderful Magic Roundabout Dougal cake for my children but she hasn't met Dougal yet, and I'd make a hedgehog with choc buttons but her daddy won't let her eat chocolate (idiot). Any good ideas, please ?

Gingernutmeg

Rather than paint the colouring onto the butter icing, what you might be better doing is ccolouring the butter icing and then piping it onto the cake. If you pipe little rosettes you can get a nice effect - a lot of the Wilton tins recommend you ice the cakes like this and it looks nice. It'd make a nice 'fuzzy' looking teddy bear too

However, I *think* that the Supercook ready to roll fondant icing is vegan, which means it has no egg in it. Check before you buy it but if that's the case then you can just buy the ready roll and colour it, and then decorate the cake that way. AFAIK fondant is usually just made from sugar, I think you might be getting muddled up with royal icing which is made with egg white, usually. Personally I'd always go for fondant over royal, especially for a child's cake

greenbee

Gingernutmeg wrote: »

However, I *think* that the Supercook ready to roll fondant icing is vegan, which means it has no egg in it. Check before you buy it but if that's the case then you can just buy the ready roll and colour it, and then decorate the cake that way. AFAIK fondant is usually just made from sugar, I think you might be getting muddled up with royal icing which is made with egg white, usually. Personally I'd always go for fondant over royal, especially for a child's cake

You can make your own sugarpaste very easily, using icing sugar, water and liquid glucose. It's very easy, tastes nicer than the ready to roll stuff, and is much easier to work with too.

Sbarkia

I used to make a wonderful Magic Roundabout Dougal cake for my children
You might be able to save my reputation morganlefay. I've never done anything like this in my life, but my lovely d.i.l. has asked me to make a 'Dougal' cake for my grand-daughter's first birthday in August and I don't know where to start to get the shape. I was thinking of a Madeira or sponge cake base, with chocolate icing for fur and Smarties for eyes etc. but haven't a clue about the basic 'dog'. Any help would be most gratefully received.

morganlefay

Hi ! I wrote a long answer describing how to do it in detail, and when I pressed the 'submit reply' button found that the system had logged me out and my long answer was lost. Too tired now but will write it again tomorrow - don't tell anyone but it's dead easy !!

Sbarkia

Thank you so much morganlefay. :A I really do appreciate your help. Birthday isn't until August but I'd like to know what my d.i.l. has let me in for.

morganlefay

Aha, back again at last. What I did: (warning - this is a birthday cake, it isn't low fat, low sugar, low anything - it is very rich and doubtless very bad for small people. Just as well they only have one birthday a year !!!!)

Make a big bowl of very chocolatey chocolate butter icing - yum
get or make either a nice swiss roll or a longish cake baked in a 2lb bread tin.
with a squidge of butter icing 'glue' the cake to the board or plate you want to serve it on.

If using a cake made in a bread tin 'carve the top so its got a curved top (ie make it rounded at the top like the swiss roll would be)and carve one end so it looks like a dog's rear end.

take a piping bag with a widish plain nozzle (so you can pipe lines of icing about 3/4 of a cm wide)

Fill the bag very full of icing and then imagine he's got a middle parting, and pipe a strand of 'hair' all the way down his side from the top middle of the cake down to the plate/board, continuing for about an inch onto the plate/board. keep doing this so you have strands of 'hair' all down one side, then all round the rear end, then all down the other side. It should look a bit like Dougal now, or a cotton floor mop ! Put some more icing on the face end and add a couple of smarties or fruit jelly tots for his eyes and a little button mouth, then trying not to cover these up completely pipe some more strands of hair (perhaps with a slightly smaller nozzle)down over his face, slightly covering up his face and making him look like a very hairy, scruffy little dog. keep it cool so the strands of 'hair' don't just melt into each other.

It sounds very difficult described like this but its not really, and a 1 year old won't notice (probably) if it's not perfect. let me know how you get on !! (or if it's not clear)

I thinnk the hedgehog is much easier as no piping involved - mostly lots of choc buttons - let me know if you want instructions for that.
HTH Good luck
Morgan

Sbarkia

Thank you so much. I'll certainly give it a go as your instructions seem very clear. I'll probably make a 'madeira' type cake in a loaf tin as it will probably be a bit easier to shape for the face. Isabel is having two parties, one for the babies and mums on her actual birthday (which I think 'Dougal' is for) and a family bbq on the preceding Saturday, which also apparently requires my chocolate cake and a coffee walnut one. I just have this picture in my head of all the little angels covered from head to toe in chocolate icing!:rotfl:

morganlefay

Ummmm, I've just looked at this:

www.thecakestore.co.uk/acatalog/Dougal.html

and their Dougal seems to have a head which is not just the front of the body, but sticks up IYSWIM - so I suppose you could cut a thickish slice off the end of the cake and wodge it back on a bit higher up with (yet more) icing so that his face is higher up than his body. You can see how long it is since I did this (well since my twin daughters are now 34 it would be a while wouldn't it !). I actually can't clearly remember how I did it ! but this picture might help.
If you google hedgehog cake there are lots of nice pictures of hedgehogs (I did do two of these - by request - for their 30th birthday party !!) so there's an idea for next year when you've truimphed with Dougal !
Sorry to be so vague.
M

Sbarkia

I just had to get back to report that I made the cake yesterday for Isabel's birthday today. I could not fault your instructions Morgan, which were very clear, but I tackled the task with a certain amount of trepidation. Unfortunately this was not misplaced! My daughter says my effort looks like poo on a plate, and my darling d.i.l. has taken a photo to use as a screen saver on the phone. People I thought were dear friends are begging me to put a pic on Facebook. It's a good job I have a sense of humour and at least I won't be asked to do anything like it in future. Incidentally the other cakes I did for Saturday's bbq were lovely!