House Cake Project: Stage 4 ? Designing & Decorating A Baby Shower Cake With Rolled Fondant

This is a bit of a long one, as it’s my most detailed creation yet! If you just want to see the picture of the finished cake, scroll down to the bottom of the entry!

One of my best friends is having a baby in April, and I wanted to do something special for her. With this whole cake thing going better than I thought, I figured I’d try to design and create a cake for her baby shower. The way I see it, people have a fancy cake for weddings, so there’s no reason to not have a fancy cake for a baby shower! I spent about 2 weeks thinking of different design possibilities, and finally settled on doing a flat rectangular base with letter blocks on the top spelling “baby”. I was originally going to put the baby’s name (Aaliyah) on smaller blocks, but decided to use a fondant plaque instead. I’ve pieced together some of the process pictures below, with a brief description under each cluster of pictures, followed by the finished product. It didn’t turn out quite how I had envisioned it, but for my third actual cake that I’ve decorated, I’m pretty confident that it turned out well! The butter cream that I used was the same as in the strawberry icing recipe I posted in an earlier post, however I used less icing sugar than the recipe called for.

For sticking royal icing, chocolate, fondant and silver candy ball decorations, I used a basic icing that was made for use on sugar cookies. You know, that icing that dries hard so that you can stack the cookies… It works WONDERS for use as a “glue” when decorating a cake… It comes in little tubes, but you have to make sure it says “great for stacking cookies”.

Note: I’ve been asked on a few occasions how to work with rolled fondant. I’m not trained in cake decorating, and I’m just doing this for fun. (For now anyways! ) So I probably can’t give the best pointers, however one website that I’ve found that gives GREAT information and a step-by-step guide to using fondant (along with many other tips) is the Wilton’s Website.

Above, starting from top left to right:

White royal icing letters. “BABY” could not be used, as the A and the Y both broke, so I piped icing onto the blocks instead. I had to pipe a lot of extra letters with Aaliyah’s name just in case any broke…
Pink royal icing hearts for the ribbon on the cake. Pink feet shown here, but not used on the cake.
Multi-coloured chocolates made in a chocolate mold. Used a paintbrush to get layers of colour.
Second row: teddy bear, different angles.
Third row: Finished chocolate fondant teddy bear! He’s cute. I put cocoa powder in with the fondant while I worked it like bread dough.

Above, starting from top left to right:

Amazing strawberry icing. This stuff is great, right out of the bowl… I will never buy strawberry icing, because home-made is so much better! Unfortunately, it either wasn’t thick enough on the cake OR it soaked in to the cake while it was being decorated… Ah well!
The multi-coloured cake chilling in the fridge. (Vanilla, Strawberry (icing) and Chocolate. Keeping with the “brown, pink and white” colour theme.)
Second row: “dirty iced” is the term used to describe the layer of icing that you put on the cake prior to applying rolled fondant. You need either a glaze, or a layer of butter cream, in order to ensure that the fondant sticks to the cake. It’s okay for it to be a bit messy, but it’s best to try to make it as smooth as possible… Then I covered the iced cake, smoothed the fondant over it with my hands, and trimmed off the extra little pieces of fondant hanging over the edge.
Third row: I coloured some fondant pink with gel food colouring, rolled out the fondant with a rolling-pin, and cut measured and even strips for the ribbon. (Not pictured: I cut a longer piece also to create a “bow” for the front of the cake.) Then I made another cake so that I could cut out some squares and trim them to make some “blocks” to place on top of the cake. Next time, I’ll probably just use rice crispie treats for these types of things… Cake blocks don’t set up all that well… More like floppy blocks. I’ve also pictured the blocks being covered with the pink fondant, then the edges being trimmed. They are now ready to be decorated!

Above, starting from top left to right:

Decorated “baby” blocks, letters and border piped on with a firm decorator icing, and a #27 tip. Chocolates applied to the tops with the cookie decorating icing.
Ribbon and bow is applied to the cake with the cookie decorating icing, and the bow is also attached with the same icing. A pink decorating icing is used to paint a trim on the bow.
Second row: royal icing hearts, and tiny silver candy balls are attached to the bow for decoration. (The hearts also help to cover up the seams from the bow…heehee…) Then, I applied a thin coating over all of the pink elements with a silver shimmer powder with a small paintbrush. It’s pretty much just an edible powder that you “dust” a tint on with. You can purchase these powders at any place where you buy other cake decorating supplies, such as Michael’s or the Bulk Barn.
Third row: just a close up of the ribbon with decor.

Above:

Here’s the chocolate fondant teddy bear, and I’ve placed a royal icing heart in his lap. Brushed with a light coating of the shimmer powder. As with the other decor, all elements of the teddy bear are glued together with cookie decorating icing.

Above:

The finished cake! The picture quality isn’t amazing or anything, as it’s just taken on my iPhone, but I’ll be uploading some better quality images onto my Flickr soon!


Filed under: House Cake Project Tagged: cake, candy, culinary, dessert, fondant, House Cake Project