Oh, it has been too long... since my last post! Except I've been really busy with uni, and that's my excuse! But that doesn't mean that the cooking has stopped, no!
A little blurb on cake decoration for ya!
My friend, Ashley, and I made this cake for our friends who had their birthdays this past weekend! Awesome, no? If you couldn't tell, it's the house from the Pixar/Disney film Up! The balloons are made from food-coloured french vanilla cupcakes and the cake that makes this house is german chocolate cake. Both were from box recipes because I really wanted to focus on decorating here.
Before laying on the frosting, you should know that you can shape the cake however you'd like! You should also slice/trim the rounded top off of the cake if you want it to lay flat.
TIP: You can use a knife, fishing string, a clean potter's wire tool, etc... to take off the rounded "muffin top." I used a clean steel guitar string because I was strapped for tools. ^^; If using any of the latter three, be sure to pull it taught and pull it across the cake for a straight trim. Now you can eat the best part of the cake separately. :)
I shaped the roof and dormers on the house before actually frosting it; this took quite a lot of thought because I didn't sketch it out--I recommend doing a quick doodle on some scratch paper before taking to the knife. I used a basic Cutco knife to shave off the corners and cut around the eaves of the roof. The chimney is a separate part made from the shaved off scraps. It was pasted on with frosting.
The frosting is just regular frosting with food dye, laid on with a spatula/spoon.
TIP: make sure the cake is properly cooled before you start laying the frosting on--the cake will begin to crumble if it's not cooled. Be patient!
I split the frosting up into portions, one for each colour I wanted. The roof is done with chocolate frosting. No dye needed there. :) I then applied the light colours first. The thin lines are done with a piping bag--which I didn't actually have.
TIP: you can use a ziploc bag just as easily. I did! Just fill up the inside corner of the bag with the respective frosting, twist the bag to seal it off, and snip off the corner of the bag. How much you snip off depends on how thick you want your line of frosting to be. I snipped off about a quarter to a half of a centimeter.
Practice piping evenly on some scratch paper before putting the makeshift piping bag to your masterpiece. Squeeze the frosting out with one hand while guiding with your dominant hand.
These really are just basics of what you can do with cake and frosting! Fondant is another popular cake-decorating item. Some people are not fond of the taste or texture of it, but it's very popular among the cake decorating shows. Cream, icing and ganache are more alternatives. Whatever you decorate, be sure to think of the texture you want--if you're baking a cake in the shape of the abominable snowman, how about using shredded dried coconut to bring out the texture? Are you baking a Ferrari-shaped cake? Maybe consider using icing instead! Don't limit yourself to the possibilities! :)
*I should have taken more pictures of the construction, but I honestly did not think this would turn out half as good as it did. Perhaps I'll do it again and do a more thorough how-to, but for now this just has some little decorating tips!
