Help with making specialist cake

Uniscots97

Hi All,
I need a bit of help. I want to make a nice sponge cake for my OH for his birthday next month but it needs to be :

- Minimum of 14 inches by 10 inches (where can I get cake tins cheaply or can I make cakes smaller and put them together? Also what about a cake board?)

- It needs to be covered with either green or royal blue icing (I have my reasons). What the best way to do this and how much would I need?

- What kind of fillings can I have, something unusual?

melie3

unixgirluk wrote: »

Hi All,
I need a bit of help. I want to make a nice sponge cake for my OH for his birthday next month but it needs to be :

- Minimum of 14 inches by 10 inches (where can I get cake tins cheaply or can I make cakes smaller and put them together? Also what about a cake board?)

- It needs to be covered with either green or royal blue icing (I have my reasons). What the best way to do this and how much would I need?

- What kind of fillings can I have, something unusual?

hi,
have you got a cake studio near to you. they hire tins out quite reasonably. i did buy a tin 15 x 11 from america recently, it cost i think £12 inc postage so very cheap. i priced a cakeboard (drum) this size online, and it cost with a box £10:eek: , but from my local cake studio was £5.65 inc box. green or royal blue icing, you can buy ready coloured blocks of fondant, not sure how many you would need for your cake, but maybe buttercream piped would be easier?? it colours very well and evenly. for filling, just depends what flavour cake you want, chocolate cake with either vanilla buttercream or chocolate. a normal sponge then seedless jam with buttercream is lovely.
HTH melie

Olliebeak

You may be best trying a local specialist cake decorating shop for the cake tin required it is a very large size and they are usually very expensive for anything other than 'usual sizes'! You could try making four smaller ones (maybe different flavours to please everybody) and join them together vertically before putting the final decoration on.

I'm sure that there places where you can hire odd-size/shaped cake tins - a friend of mine used to do celebration cakes and had to do that frequently.

Ooops Melie3 beat me with her reply .

Uniscots97

Doesn't look like there's a cake studio near me. It needs to be fondant icing for the top as I'm placing some items onto the cake and putting writing onto it. I've sourced the writing icing in the colour I want. The supermarket sell packs of coloured fondant icing (blue, green, black and yellow all in one box but each block is only 125g which doesn't sound a lot to me.

Could I make my own cake board, i.e. chipboard covered in a couple of layers of foil?

celyn90

I tend to make smaller ones and glue them together with buttercream. Enough icing will hide the joins then you can decorate over the top - plus if you screw up then you don't have so much work to put it right (I remember cratering a huge wedding cake a couple of years ago - we had a power cut as I was cooking it - it was an expensive error!) Large sponges aren't easy to cook - especially if your oven doesn't heat evenly, it's easy to sink the centres if you have to turn them and they burn easily on the edges or dry out with long cooking times.

If you do go for a large tin, how about finding a straight sided roasting tin - mine was about £3 from Ikea (line it really well and you can even it up when you turn it out).

If you can't source a cake board that size, a couple of chunks of corrogated cardboard glued together to make a thick base, coated in foil or wrapping paper then wrapped in clingfilm works okay as a substitite - you can use a hair drier to shrink wrap the clingfilm over the surface.

I would use buttercream to ice because it can easily be tinted and is easy to wok with (plus it tastes nicer than fondant!), but it depends on the decoration you want. If it needs to be dead flat then fondant would be fine.

You can stick whatever you like in the middle, it will depend on how far in advance you intend to make it, what flvour cake you have and how you want to ice it. Fresh fruit and cream for example will have to be done very soon before consumption, jam or lemon curd and butter cream you can do in advance. Nutella, crushed wafers and caramels also work well with chocolate sponge. Crushed mergangue (sp?) in butter cream makes a nice texture change with vanilla or lemon cake. cel x

celyn90

Edited to say... opps, looked like I crossed posts with you there.

125g isn't a lot, for coloured icing regalice tend to sell strong colours as "decoration" (for modelling) in small quantities only or the pale colours white and cream for "covering" in much larger blocks. You can buy white and a colouring and colour it yourself - add and knead through until you get the colours you want (I use powder colours because the liquids are messy). Supercook used to do aerosol sprays for strong colours but I'm not sure they still make them now I haven't seen them for years.

Chipboard would be great covered - and probably much better than a conventional board as it's so much stronger and a cake that size is likely to be quite heavy. cel x

Uniscots97

Thanks Celyn, it does need to be totally flat due to the writing and decorations I'm putting on it.

I got pm'd this link for sugarpaste icing, is this the right stuff I need to cover the cake?


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/REGALICE-READY-TO-ROLL-SUGARPASTE-ICING-BLUE-500g_W0QQitemZ360058382916QQihZ023QQcategoryZ57211QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Uniscots97

celyn90 wrote: »

Edited to say... opps, looked like I crossed posts with you there.

125g isn't a lot, for coloured icing regalice tend to sell strong colours as "decoration" (for modelling) in small quantities only or the pale colours white and cream for "covering" in much larger blocks. You can buy white and a colouring and colour it yourself - add and knead through until you get the colours you want (I use powder colours because the liquids are messy). Supercook used to do aerosol sprays for strong colours but I'm not sure they still make them now I haven't seen them for years.

Chipboard would be great covered - and probably much better than a conventional board as it's so much stronger and a cake that size is likely to be quite heavy. cel x

I'd rather buy it ready colour Celyn, I helped a flatmate make a cake years ago and we tried mixing colouring (red) with icing and it went very badly wrong.

melie3

hi, im a novice at decorating cakes, but the link for the sugarpaste is the right thing you want, i would think you may need about 500g to cover cake that size maybe more. dont quote me on that though. i have only once tried rolling icing, and it kept getting stuck to surface, i think you need plenty of icing sugar and keep it moving, but it will obviously be a huge piece of icing, ive opted for buttercream for the cake im making just because it will be easier. cakeboard idea sounds good, it will be a heavy cake so you will need something strong, dont get it wet though.

freyasmum

unixgirluk wrote: »

Doesn't look like there's a cake studio near me. It needs to be fondant icing for the top as I'm placing some items onto the cake and putting writing onto it. I've sourced the writing icing in the colour I want. The supermarket sell packs of coloured fondant icing (blue, green, black and yellow all in one box but each block is only 125g which doesn't sound a lot to me.

Could I make my own cake board, i.e. chipboard covered in a couple of layers of foil?

Hiya, I don't know if you drive but there is a hobbycraft store at The Fort (outside glasgow). They have a cake decorating aisle, it's only small but they do have the fondant icing

I can't remember the exact sizes, but they do lots of different cake tins, too.

As for the cakeboard, I'd get some really strong cardboard and cover it with whatever you want

Uniscots97

Thanks Freyasmum, my family are in Glasgow I'll take a look next time I'm through. Are you Glasgow based? Was hoping to make the MSE meet in glasgow last saturday but had family emergency last minute.