Test Cake for a Birthday

[callistra]

I am going to make a birthday cake for Connor, and I decided we need to run a test to check out our methodology and learn any impending problems with the ingredients and mediums we will be using. This is a pictorial of our test run.

Please note, there are 20 pictures behind this cut. If you are on dialup, either be patient or just don't worry about it. The cake is blue. What more do you need to know, really?? Oh, and it's really YUMMY! Although I am planning on using different cake mixes etc for the real cake.

	The Beginning (Cue Star Wars Music) In the beginning there was cake. And it was good. But wrapped in plastic. This is a test run of making a cake for a friend's son's birthday party as his present. So, I decided I needed to practice. All my cake decorating books (I like to research before I do, OK? *grin*) suggest baking the cake the day before the icing, to give the cake time to firm a little, and also reduce crumbs.
	Width View Yes, the cake is 9 and a half Inches Wide. I used my biggest baking tray, which was unusually clean after a good pork roast the other day (making gravy in these things really brings out the shine!!) lined with baking paper.
	Length View Yes, the cake is about 14 inches long. So that's 9 x 14. That's a BIG cake. And it cooked perfectly in about 40 minutes, three packet mixes, one tinted green, one tinted blue and one natural.
	The Icings This is just a buttercream icing, 125gs of butter and a cup and a half of icing sugar and a little milk, but a double batch. For the final product we might need a quad batch if we go for a second layer of cake. The small pot has blue icing for the decorations, and the big pot has pale blue for the whole cake.
	Implements of Torture Spatula. Spoon. Knife. Writing gel. Writing Gel packet.l I've tried writing with icing before, and managed to make it readable. It onlytakes the first 5 letters to get the hang. However, that means most people's "Happy" ends up being a strange snail trail across the top of a "Birthday SuchandSuch!" cake. Hence the test cake!
	The Initial Cut Ok, to make the 1, John and I discussed this long and hard. Previously to cutting the cake, I grabbed some sturdy cardboard and made a mockup of the bottom of the large baking tray, so we could see how big the cake was, and trace it onto paper so we could draw on it and see if the shapes we wanted to make would fit. This turned out to be a brilliant idea as it cut down on a) the arguments and b) the wasted attempts at cake cutting and screwing up. :-) I used a tape measure (the same as in previous cuts) and we cut a 3" wide column for 10" before cutting out, amd cut the corner off the top to make the initial shape.
	Results of the Initial Cut The column goes along the bottom to make the base of the 1, and the cake is now officially 3 inches longer. This makes it 16 inches. Or so. It's a good thing we did not get to the cake shop in time, the board I was planning on getting was going to be 19" x 15, if I could find one close. I am hoping to leave a 2 inch or more border, not a 1.5 inch border. :-)
	The Workbench The Workbench. We have our icings ready to go. The cake shop was shut, so we were unable to buy a cakeboard, so we used our big chopping board instead. Everything is ready to hand, and the water was boiling as we took this pic, so you need to imagine a steel coffee mug with boiling water in it on the board next to the cake. :-)
	Tthhthththcrapsththth Mathththter While we were drinking strawberry champagne, it was NOT out of those glasses. :-) They are from the drinks we had with parents the night before. Sometimes hand washing can take it's time to be done.... And here's some of the bits of cake we sliced off the top to even it out before we flipped the cake over. I like Alton's theory of using picket fences for the right height, cos I swear I prowled around the house for most of friday looking for someone around the right height and length to lean my knife on while I cut the top to make it flat, and found NOTHING.
	The Initial Slathering Glop! Remember, too much is good! Working away at too much is far better than working away at not quite enough. And too much gives you way more leeway to hide things. :-) Hence next time we will use a triple batch of icing if just using one layer, and quad if doing both layers. John had started to smooth it down until I said "Hang on, photo time!"
	Icing Smoothing and Play Just getting used to the way the icing handles and trying to make it smooth. Side view. Slatherings.
	More slatherings Slather slather slather.
	Man at Work! John and I did this together. We love to tackle new cooking projects together, we find we both learn that way, and I also think it helps keep us fresh and new as we learn new skills. Also means we do "adult" stuff together. (We have a 12 week old baby.) Plus, his view is different from mine, and together I think we made a better cake!!
	Smoothing the Icing You can't really see it brilliantly here, but in the end, the best way to get a smooth shiny result was with a heated butter knife. Realistically, this only works in areas where there is a lot of icing, and makes the big wide areas a bit more difficult. We used a wok shovel (er... flat and wide and metal) for some of the middle bits. I think John was happy with that but I was still uncertain. We weren't too worried about getting everything perfect as this was just the test cake, some of the corners do look a bit better than this. :-)
	Balloons! Just for a bit of interest, some blue balloons! Made with the smaller pot of darker icing, and the writing gel.
	The Finished Product! John was feeling enthused still, so tackled "Happy Birthday" at the top to get used to the feel of writing with the gels. "Happy" is, of course, a bit more mangled than "Birthday." And I think we can go bigger on the font too. Actually, thinking about this more, the gels we bought say they harden and so can be used for gingerbread etc and then be stackable. Option might be to make the writing on baking paper, and peel it off and place afterwards. Then we could print out the words and make them look even more even....oooooooooooo *grin*
	John and Finished Product We both learnt alot from this, and we both feel pretty damn proud about the whole thing!
	Me and Finished Cake! The glow in my cheeks is cos by now we finished the bottle of strawberry champagne. *grin* Yep, very happy with this. We can now plan for the real thing, and I need to go and get a large cake board. Is it bad manners to ask for a cakeboard back once the cake is eaten?
	Cropped Pic of the Cake Cropped Pic of the Cake. And that's it! Apart from the dismantling and trying to feed it to every one else, cos one packet makes a cake for ten apparently, so there were 30 odd servings in that cake...

Comments

[tiberius-n.livejournal.com]

That be hardcore. I think that is a kodak moment.

[fe2h2o.livejournal.com]

Not at all bad manners to ask for the board back—realistically, what is someone else going to do with it?

Writing on baking paper and transfering it is how a lot of royal icing (the really, really hard icing) details are done. It has the advantage that you can put paper underneath, either with guidelines, or even better, write it out and then just trace over it. It also allows you to curve the letters and the like (lay the paper over a piece of piping or rolling pin or something) for different effects.