How to make Birthday (and other celebration) Cakes!

Paulie'sGirl

codwidow

Hi

I have volunteered myself to do my sister in laws 40th cake which was a bit crazy of me as I am a bit of an amateur

I have chosen the cake I would like and its a two tier affair with a handbag on etc. The design of the icing and the pattern is no problem as I am a bit of an artist but I am a rubbish cook and only ever used ready rolled icing, the cake I have chosen has pink, dark pink and brown. How can I cheat my way round this one can I just paste food colouring onto the icing ? I really dont want to try and make the icing I am not a good cook. My mother in law will bake the cake, I will make it posh and ice it, if I can sort out the coloured icing that is LOL I dont mind buying the ready rolled white icing but I made my daughter a crazy cake for her birthday and each pack of coloured icing cost me about £4 and I used about 8 packs - not very moneysaving !



Many thanks

charliee_3

go to a cake shop and buy some paste colours,you can then colour your plain white icing accordingly.... alternativly just bite the bullet and buy the pre-coloured icing from the cake decorating shop. if you dont think you will really use the pastes again (they last forever- you need a tiny tiny amount) then it may actually work out cheaper if you need a lot of colours as my local cake shop sells the coloured stuff in quite small packs.

charliee_3

i have made brown colour quite well with cocoa powder.. and it makes it delicious!! so you may only need to buy pink colour

codwidow

Do you make a paste with the cocoa powder ?

It would be worth investing in the pastes as I have two small kids and my husband to do a cake for so I would probably use them, plus I have bought shed loads of white icing, may as well use it up

Thanks

greenbee

For dark colours you need to get M&B paste, as Regalice colours tend to be pastels. They do a fantastic dark pink which I used for this cake. I think the lilac came from them too ">

I buy online from various places, so searching for M&B sugarpaste should give you plenty of choice.

Paulie'sGirl

charliee_3

codwidow wrote: »

Do you make a paste with the cocoa powder ?

It would be worth investing in the pastes as I have two small kids and my husband to do a cake for so I would probably use them, plus I have bought shed loads of white icing, may as well use it up

Thanks

i am sure its not right but i just kneaded it in and it worked fine.. its not a dark rich brown.. i'd say if brown is one of the main colours then buy a proper colour paste as it isnt perfect with the cocoa, but if you only need a tiny bit, to save money you can easily do this... why not do an experiment and see how it comes out?

photo of cake here.. its not brilliant as i had to make it in a couple of hours, but my son loved it!!

thisuseridistakenagain

if you buy ready to go white icing, you can add in normal wet food colourings, you just drop a few drops onto your icing ball, knead it in and then roll it in icing sugar to make up for the extra liquid. keep going till its a strong enough colour.

The asda icing is usually less than £1 for a fair lump of it.

These are my cakes too if you are needing some inspiration!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKnvNNx7KaY

I loved yours BTW charlee!

woohoo

I got gel colouring from ebay. It is called a 'student pack' with 8 small pots of colour and it cost me £9 inc postage! I have done a couple of terms of sugarcraft at college and made several kids cakes and i have hardly used any colour at all. This pack worked out well for me with the bigger range of colour and the smaller pots. Our teacher told us not to use liquid colour as it makes the sugarpaste too wet??