(Thank you Moeys Heart & Heart for this AMAZING tutorial)
This is a tutorial to show you how to decorate a cake that makes you look pretty clever.
The beauty of this method is that you can put anything you darn well want on a cake. Your kid likes a
certain team and you don't trust Stuffmart Bakery?
No problemo. All you need is a picture off the webz (or a coloring book
page, or a drawing you did yourself) and you can make any design you
want.
In this case, Gater wanted a "Dora/Princess" cake. I didn't know how I
would do a "Dora/Princess", but all I had to do was spend 10 seconds on
Google, ("princess dora coloring page") and there was a coloring page
all ready to print out.
First, bake your cake and let it cool thoroughly. It needs a flat top, so do what you have to to make it flat.
Make your icing; a
buttercream made with butter
is best. You want an icing that is smooth and soft, but that hardens
in the freezer. You will probably want to make a double batch to be
sure you have enough to divide into all the colors you need.
*When you make your icing, you will want to sift the powdered sugar and
mix the icing up quickly so you don't get lumps. You don't want lumps
clogging up your icing tips in your detail work. Your icing should be
of medium thickness, not too stiff. Soft peaks.*
Ice your cake. You want a flat-topped cake. The icing job does not have to be perfect, just flat.
Print out a coloring page, and make sure it is the right size for the
top of your cake. You need at least 1/2" space around the edge of your
design on the cake.
*your design will be reversed, so if you are doing a team logo or
similar, you will want a mirror image of your original printout.*
It is a good idea at this stage to decide how many colors you want to
use in your finished design. You might want to mark those colors in the
appropriate areas on your coloring page with markers. I didn't this
time, because the design was simple and I was lazy.
Trim your coloring page, and tape it to the back side of a flat piece of glass. I always use glass from a spare picture frame.
Tape a similarly-sized piece of wax paper to the front of the glass. Now you have a coloring page/glass/wax paper sandwich.
Mix up the colors you will need for your design. Don't forget to include a dark color for outlines and details.
*I prefer to use paste colors because they are vibrant and easily
blendable, they don't thin out your icing, and they last pretty close to
forever. One little jar of each of a few basic colors will last you
for years. Sometimes you get lucky and find a marked-down pack of
specialty colors, like I did. If the specialty pack has a couple good
basic colors in, or ones that you are likely to use in any case (for
example, the Diego colors I bought for $1.99 had a skin color, blue,
black, and brown -- all good colors,) by all means -- pick those suckers
up, and some for your mommy friends too.*
Now the fun part! Fill your icing bags. For the finest details, use a
#1 decorating tip -- and you don't have to get fancy if you don't have
actual decorating tips, they just make it easier. As you can see in the
picture below, for some of the colors I just used ziploc bags with the
tiniest speck of the corner cut off.
But for the initial details, you are better off with an icing bag and a #1 decorating tip if you can get one.
Now, trace over the outlines that you want to see on your finished
product. This bottom layer will be the top layer -- the one you see --
on your design.
Once your bottom detail layer is established, you can fill in larger areas over the details
with other colors of icing. You can't go back in and put details in at
this stage if you leave them out, so think logically, one step at a
time. It isn't hard and you can fix things later if you need to, so
don't stress too much about it.
Color in all the areas with the icing layers to a depth of about 1/4
inch. Fill in right to the edges and on top of your detail lines, so
your whole design is supported by that 1/4" thickness of icing.
You can hold your glass up to the light to see if there are any
pinpricks of light shining through your icing design, so you can fix
those thin areas before you go on.
*This is when your children will come in and inform you that you have
screwed up and your icing job was a good try, but it does not look like
Dora. You may chuckle to yourself at how
ignorant impertinent amazed they will be when you reveal the final design.*
Now, take the whole coloring page/glass/wax paper/icing design sandwich,
and slip it into the freezer. You want it in the freezer until the
icing is hard to the touch. I don't really know how long that takes,
but I'd venture at least fifteen minutes.
Now is a good time to busy yourself with making the sides and bottom
edge of the cake look pretty, or doing the dishes, or having a beer, or
whatever.
Now -- the magic! Take your coloring page/glass/wax paper/icing design
sandwich out of the freezer and make sure the icing is nice and hard.
Un-tape the wax paper/icing, and
quickly but carefully, up-end your design onto the cake. Press it down a little so it sticks.
Then, also
quickly but carefully, before the design softens, peel back the wax paper to reveal the design.
Now, make the top edge of the cake look pretty with some stars or
whatever (a #16 tip is good to use for decorating the sides and edges)
and pipe your message.
Voila! You are a genius!
Or a broke monkey!
