help with sons birthday cake required pleaseeee!

helen81_2

Hi,
I don't know if I'm posting this in the right place so sorry and feel free to move if it's wrong

I'm having a go at making DS' 5th birthday cake and if any experienced cake makers/decorators are around I'd really appreciate some of your expert advice please

Heres what I'm doing...Ive bought a 'No 5' shaped cake tin, 2 packets of victoria sponge mix (still moneysaving though as they are on offer in Morrisons at the mo for 90p each!) The baking the cake is straight forward enough,it's the doing it up bit I will struggle with. Do I freeze the cake then slice in half as it defrosts to get a nice clean cut without it crumbling to bits?
I want to decorate it to look like a road,so am I best adding a tiny bit of black food colouring to ready roll icing or painting it with colouring paste? OR just dyeing some butter icing grey? The plan then is to decorate with lines of silver balls or something for the road markings ect and then put some little fire engine moulded candles onto the 'road' (having a fire engine party)
Any ideas? Better ideas even??

Please help,Im starting to stress!!
Helen x

Penny_Watcher

I use dental floss to cut cakes in half. Sounds mad but works really well (a bit like a cheese wire for cheese). Make sure your piece of floss is long enough then gently saw from side to side until the cake is sliced through.

I'm not too good at icing, but I think adding black food colouring to pale yellow butter icing will come out the colour of mud .

More experienced cake makers will be along in a minute.

freyasmum

Hiya,

If you leave the cake to cool completely once cooked, you will be able to slice it without it crumbling.

I would dye the butter icing; saves faffing around with paints and the colouring wouldn't mix in properly to the ready rolls icing

Also, if you can, buy some food colouring paste, rather than the liquid as it is more intense.

HTH,
Linzi x

angchris

just make 2 thinnish cakes with the mold and place one on top of the other and sandwich with jam/cream/whatever. i`d keep it simple and make the icing with icing sugar and cream cheese and decorate with sweeties etc. could you roll out some black liquorice to use as the road and maybe buy an icing pen to make the road markings. im sure you will figure something out, i wish my mum had been as creative with my birthday cakes!
make sure you have a plate/platter big enough to hold the cake, ive made that mistake before :rolleyes: i ended up chopping up a strong cardboard box and having about 4/5 layers of strong card with tin foil wrapped around it.

mrs_mix

cakes are best left to the next day before cutting
butter icing doesn't colour well the easy way I have found is to cover the cake with the roll out icing and the draw the design on with a tube of ready made icing usually black or white then mix icing sugar the liquid food colour I need and some water to a thick paint consistancy then paint it on
here's some I've done before


hth
pam

rippedoff3

hi

What i did was to go to my local library, flick through the cake decorating books until i found something similiar to what i needed, you can get so many ideas from them, Debbie Brown is a good one to look out for childrens cakes.

One tip i can give you is you can make markings on the cake with a cocktail stick and then 'colour in' in the markings with a icing pen or tube.I second that liqourice is handy i used it to make the wires for a playstation

In my local cake decorating shop i bought a black food colouring pen which is great for balck lines on top of the cake. I would colour some white paste with black to make the grey and then use the black pen when dry.

You can place cake in fridge for a few hours to help the cutting part, wrap tightly in film or foil.

Good luck

Shelley