my first ever birthday cake help

jopsey

I have got it into my head I want to make my little boys birthday cake this year ,I am ashamed to say I have never made one before .

how long before his birthday can i make it ? I don't fancy leaving it till the day incase anything goes wrong.

I had seen a groovy chick cake in asda that was just a cake on a board with fairy cakes around it for about £10:eek:
After somebody posting a link to ebay for somebody selling pre printed icing pictures fancy having a go with a bob the builder theme .

So here is my idea please correct me if I am wrong
bake 2 victoria sponges and 24 fairy cakes.
fill sponge with jam and cream (what cream?)
butter cream(?) around main cake once on cake board ,place picture icing on top and maybe hundreds and thousands /choc shavings around edge, ice fairy cakes and pop pictures on top and display around main cake.
Thanks if you got this far just really nervous about messing it up

rach

sounds lovely. i'd only make it the day before, you could sandwich with either fresh cream, whipped, or buttercream.

Gingernutmeg

Buttercream will be far more forgiving than fresh cream. If you fill the sponge cake with jam and buttercream, then cover it with ready-roll fondant, you can make it a couple of days before the big day and it will be fine. If you're only planning to cover the cake with buttercream, then you really need to do it on the day as it will go crusty if it's left for too long, which isn't dangerous but it doesn't look nice. If you can, go for the fondant icing. It's very forgiving stuff - just roll it out fairly thickly - and then you can stick the pictures on with some water icing, which is just icing sugar and water. Or you can buy ready-made 'royal' icing, which you can colour, pipe or blob onto the cake and sprinkle with whatever you want

I'm not sure but I think the edible pictures are printed onto some kind of rice paper, and I'm not sure that this would stand up to being left on buttercream for any length of time, unless you made some *very* sugary, dry buttercream ... I've never risked it as if they're put onto anything too wet I've found that they wrinkle, or sometimes even start to dissolve.

JillD_2

you can freeze cakes. I have made my children's birthday cakes so far for all their birthdays (ok they have only had 5 birthdays combined but still ....)

I find making them the day before too stressful in case it goes wrong. So I make like a week in advance then freeze. The morning of the day before I take out and leave to defrost during the day. I then decorate at night and its ready for the next day. They taste absolutely fine frozen and defrosted. by the way. And if you need to do any fancy shaping or cutting up, they cut far less crumbly slightly defrosted than totally unfrozen. IYSWIM.

Your design idea sounds lovely

For a really easy motif on the main cake you could also buy/beg/borrow a Bob the Builder figure and just stick it on it. Your boy will love it and he gets to play with the Bob toy afterwards.

HTH
Jill