How to make Birthday (and other celebration) Cakes!

hermum

For my daughters 21st, I hired the cake tins from our local card & cake decorating shop.

TrulyMadly

Thank you all so much. What great ideas. Especially love Owain's 1 and a 8 shapes. Might go with this.X

Katgoddess

You could always have extra cake out back for slicing up.

VJsmum

I made a 10" square cake for a friends anniversary and bought the tin off t'internet for a couple of quid! (Tin ternet )

Or you could make a big cake with a smaller one sat on top - 2 tier cake.

rhosynbach

i used a large meat tray lined with baking paper when i was in a similar position.. when i needed a really big one i made 2 sponges in the largest meat tray (one at a time ) and sandwiched them with jam and cream and then iced it.. it was huge and plenty for everyone

babyshoes

Costco cakes for ease - they are really quite nice and not too expensive. You do need to find someone with a card if you don't have one yourself, but lots of people do so just ask around.

flea72

asda sell a large traybake cake for just under £10 - its about 1ft x 2ft long - serves 50 people

F

zippychick

as this has dropped down the board ive merged it with our celebreation cakes thread which should also give you some ideas

Dont forget we want pics when it's done!

Zip

TrulyMadly

Hi Everyone,

Sorry to be a pain again. Thank you for all your great ideas for a 18th birthday cake. I was originally going to go with the one and eight shaped cakes but my DD has decided she would like a chocolate tiered "wedding type" cake. I've started tonight and made the larger base cake in a Roses chocolate tin, and the middle tier in my normal size chocolate cake tin. I have a dinky tin for the top tier. She wants it really chunky so i will cook 3 times each cake and butter cream the whole lot together. It should be a really good size and in proportion.
The problem then arises about how to decorate it. I make chocolate cake every week for the family and simply decorate them by putting about a dozen squares of cadbury's chocolate on the top while still warm. When the chocolate melts I just spread it over the top and leave to harden.
This will clearly not work for my "big" cake as I somehow need to smooth out the sides of the cake.
Can anyone suggest how I will cover it. To finish DD wants it decorated with lots of strawberries and Maltesars around the top edges of each layer.
Thank you so much again for your advice......so much appreciatedx

ragz_2

Royal icing is probably the least messy way, you can colour it too. I buttercreamed a 10" square chocolate cake for a wedding and it was very tricky, wouldn't want to do it for a three tiered one. Are you supporting the layers with anything? To look in proportion the top layer needs to be less deep than the bottom one, I think.