Cake decorating advice....

[Pieface]

I need help off the cake making folk out there please.

It's PRoD's 4th birthday and I stupidly just said I'd make a birthday cake for it

Having no known skills in the area of icing, doing the PRoD design (the star thing with a turntable needle or the fist one) could be a right fucking shambles and no one wants to eat a shambles now do they?

So firstly, is it possible to transfer your own designs onto rice paper at all? This could be useful when I cock up the icing.

And do you have any icing advice for me? I want to have a go but I think it could be really fiddly.

Luckily I can do cakes so at least that bit is sorted

 

[madzone]

There are bakeries where you can take your design in and they'll print it onto icing for you.

Or you can cover a cake in ready rolled fondant icing, place the paper with the design on top of it and when you draw lightly round the design it'll imprint into the cake enough so you can then fill it in with icing paints or whatever you choose.

 

[Looby]

Buy rolls of icing, you can get them in all sorts of colours or dye it,
I dyed some green for a football pitch cake. It's not that fiddly to put it on the cake either.

Don't know anything about the transfer though. You could probably cut the logo out of royal icing too.

Good luck.

 

[pootle]

I once did a magic bus cake for someone who was a huge Timothy Leary fan.

It was all psychadelic and rainbowy, and as well as a magic bus on the cake, there was all kinds of shooting stars and assorted trippy stuff coming off it.

Royal Icing and Florists Wire are SO your friends here.

The Star and Arm design would be ded easy to do in royal icing.

 

[Wolfie]

you can always make patterns on the top using sweeties

I've seen some great looking cakes made entirely from things like chocolate mini-rolls and bits of mars bar and stuff

 

[Wolfie]

oh, and did you hear the bloke on the radio the other day who had a 3 tiered pork pie for his wedding instead of cake?!?

how brilliant would that be!

 

[Looby]

you can always make patterns on the top using sweeties

I've seen some great looking cakes made entirely from things like chocolate mini-rolls and bits of mars bar and stuff

nathansears fave ever cake was a fort his mum made out of choccy fingers.

 

[pootle]

oh, and did you hear the bloke on the radio the other day who had a 3 tiered pork pie for his wedding instead of cake?!?

how brilliant would that be!

That would be RUBBISH! One of the best things about getting married is the cake (and presents and disco and holiday and nice new frock, shoes and tiara)

Can you imagine getting to the reception and expecting a delicious christmas cake type episode, and getting a slice of pork pie instead? Pah!

The sweets are decorating tool, is however a good one. You could use strawberry bootlace and licorish very effectively when making a PRoD cake I reckon!

 

[Wolfie]

....
Can you imagine getting to the reception and expecting a delicious christmas cake type episode, and getting a slice of pork pie instead? Pah!
...

yes - I'd be in heaven
(as long as there was plenty of piccalilli of course)

 

[Pieface]

Well I quite want to do it myself - in keeping with the PRoD ethos So I reckon getting a bakery to do the design for me is cheating a bit.....

What is this royal icing you're talking about? Is it that very thick icing some cakes have on it? The stuff you can peel off in layers?

Can you cut out complex patterns and then put it on top of icing on the cake?

Using other stuff is a good idea aswell, Wolfie - my mum was an expert with smarties.....

 

[Looby]

Well I quite want to do it myself - in keeping with the PRoD ethos So I reckon getting a bakery to do the design for me is cheating a bit.....

What is this royal icing you're talking about? Is it that very thick icing some cakes have on it? The stuff you can peel off in layers?

Can you cut out complex patterns and then put it on top of icing on the cake?

It's like the icing you get on xmas cakes.

You can either buy it in rolls which can be brushed with food colouring or you can buy packs of multi coloured icing in blocks that you roll out and cut. You can pretty much do anything with it and if it goes wrong re roll and start again.

 

[Wolfie]

if you were doing it the traditional PROD red and black you could use marmite for the black bits and strawberry jam for the red ...

 

[Pieface]

It's like the icing you get on xmas cakes..

Does it have marzipan under it? Like a sneaky bit of underlay

I loathe the stuff and if so I shall pipe away instead!

Wolfie - you've stopped helping, sir. Now you're in the realms of crazy Blumenthal style cookery. If you can give me a scientific reason for putting marmite on my cake then I may consider it.

 

[Looby]

if you were doing it the traditional PROD red and black you could use marmite for the black bits and strawberry jam for the red ...

That's just wrong.

 

[Derian]

Royal icing is the stuff you mix yourself - icing sugar and egg white. Useful for sticking the sugarpaste on with and piping a border etc. Sugarpaste is the stuff you buy in blocks and roll out, then cover, then use to cut out to decorate.. Supermarkets stock small blocks of sugarpaste (they call it ready to roll icing iirc) but it's much pricier than buying a larger block from a cake decorating supplier.

It's, erm, a hobby of mine. More than happy to lend you any of the tools and things that might make it easier?

 

[pootle]

There's no need for marizpan. I used a bit of heated up apricot jam on my acid cake.

 

[Pieface]

It's, erm, a hobby of mine. More than happy to lend you any of the tools and things that might make it easier?

De-rian!!! Is in tha house!



Another question - is black too freaky an icing colour for folk to consider eating? Is it unnatural and will it lead to tar association in people's heads?

This would be a bad association I feel - leading to the uneating of the cake.

 

[Dubversion]

It's, erm, a hobby of mine. More than happy to lend you any of the tools and things that might make it easier?

skills?

 

[Pieface]

skills?

Do you want to be wearing the cake mista? Remember the landlady was getting upset about confetti last time?

 

[Derian]

De-rian!!! Is in tha house!



Another question - is black too freaky an icing colour for folk to consider eating? Is it unnatural and will it lead to tar association in people's heads?

This would be a bad association I feel - leading to the uneating of the cake.

It might be tricky to actually get it black in the first place. If you add black to white sugarpaste you'd need a LOT. Probably easier to paint it on, but I've never tried black before

You could try printing the PRoD image on photo paper then covering one of those very thin cake boards with it. As long as you make sure the cake board is the same size as the cake - when it comes to cutting the cake, all you'd do is just take the top image covered board off. Voila, cake underneath. Just a thought.

 

[pootle]

You could mix up edible glitter with the black icing, and then you'd have a nice sparkly effect.

Black is anyway, and people will be clamouring to have cool, sparkly cake in their bellies.

 

[Dubversion]

You could mix up edible glitter with the black icing, and then you'd have a nice sparkly effect.

WOW!

 

[Wolfie]

is that a no to the marmite idea then?

how about doing a strawberry cheese cake and using pickled walnuts for the black bits ...


actually, more seriously, a red star shaped cake with black detail made from licorice laces would be cool ...

 

[Derian]

is that a no to the marmite idea then?

how about doing a strawberry cheese cake and using pickled walnuts for the black bits ...


actually, more seriously, a red star shaped cake with black detail made from licorice laces would be cool ...

Licorice laces and licorice allsorts

 

[Pieface]

I like the sparkly glitter idea....

Derian, I'm afraid I don't really understand what you're suggesting Are you going to be at the next Book Group? Or can you direct me to a website that may help?

pootle mentioned Royal Icing and Florists Wire?

btw thanks everyone for your suggestions

 

[Derian]

I like the sparkly glitter idea....

Derian, I'm afraid I don't really understand what you're suggesting Are you going to be at the next Book Group? Or can you direct me to a website that may help?

pootle mentioned Royal Icing and Florists Wire?

btw thanks everyone for your suggestions

Yes, I'll be at Book Group, can explain further and/or bring stuff. Soz, bit trickier to explain than actually do, that's the simple bit! I'll have a look for some websites later. I might have some of the sparkly glitter stuff - I'll check.

 

[pootle]

btw thanks everyone for your suggestions

I'd say you are better off going with Derian's advice. My approach to cake decorating is something of the idiot savant!

I shall think *seriously* though about decent suggestions, and see if I haven't got a book or two somewhere.

 

[Wolfie]

Licorice laces and licorice allsorts

no pickled walnuts then?

 

[Pieface]

actually, more seriously, a red star shaped cake with black detail made from licorice laces would be cool ...

This is a good idea.

Gets around the black icing problem....

 

[pootle]

I have an idea...

You could make a big cake as the main centre piece, but you could also make a load of black and red cup/fairy cakes that could be arranged around the cake, like coming out like trails.

Cup cakes are ded easy to decorate to, and you can make loads in one go. Easy to distribute too!