Cake Decorating Craft How-To

For my BFF’s son’s fourth birthday:

So…I find cake decorating fun and it’s such a rewarding hobby to share with other people, including children (and I’m not just talking about the eating part, either!). So that’s why last week for my daughter’s sixth birthday I decided to do a “practice run” wedding cake for my sister. She and her fiancé were thinking blue scrollwork on a white fondant 2-tiered cake. (The design has since changed somewhat, but you can wait until after the wedding to see the pics…)

So I sat down with my two daughters and my oldest niece (she’s also six) and we baked ourselves a cake. Check out how you can make baking and decorating a beautiful cake fun, easy and rewarding for everyone!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Two round cake pans of different sizes (the recommended difference is at least 4 inches, but in this case I used a 6-inch and an 8-inch round pan, so only 2 inches different).
• One or two boxes of cake mix (this depends on how tall you want your cakes – I only used one box of cake mix in this case) or enough cake batter for your two cake pans if you elect to make the cake from scratch.
• Two pounds of rolled fondant icing (this can be made from scratch, but you need glycerin and glucose, which you can only buy at exclusive baking stores, so why not just buy the pre-made fondant, readily available at Michael’s?)
• At least four cups of buttercream icing (I do usually make this from scratch – real butter tastes so much better and it’s super, duper easy to make – but Wilton Decorator Icing from Michael’s is excellent, and I used it in this case to save time and effort. Generally I stay away from the grocery store brands of frosting and icing.)
• Cake boards to match the size of cakes you’re making (I needed an 8-inch and a 6-inch). You can get away without using a board on the bottom layer if you have a nice platter to serve the cake on. I use a swiveling platter, which makes it very easy to decorate and serve on the same dish.
• Decorating bags and tips (in this case I used  Wilton #3 round and #13 star tips).
• Cake dowel rods (or use straws – I did in this case)

Step One:
Bake and cool the cakes. You can tort the cakes and fill them with frosting (or other filling) if you like. Torting just means cutting the cake in half horizontally so that you can put something (like icing, whipped cream, jam, etc.) in between the layers. Place the cakes on the cake boards.

Step Two:
Frost both cakes with buttercream icing. Place three or four dowel rods or straws into the larger cake (you’ll need to measure and cut them first, so that they are even with the top of the cake, and be sure to ensure they are within the circumference of where the smaller cake will go). The purpose of the straws/dowels is to support the upper layer so that it doesn’t crush the lower layer. You may wish to place the fondant on the cake first before inserting the dowel rods/straws – this is up to your personal preference.

Step Three:
Divide the rolled fondant icing into two unequal parts (approximately 2/3 and 1/3)

and then roll the larger ball of icing until it is 1/8″ thick. Drape the fondant over the larger cake, smoothing it using a fondant smoothing tool (or a large spatula) and then repeat with the smaller cake.

Trim off the excess fondant (you can save it in an airtight bag) and place the smaller cake on top of the larger cake.

Step Four:
Decorate the cake however you like! We used blue buttercream icing to pipe scrollwork and other designs, and we used white buttercream icing to pipe a shell border around both layers.

And here is the finished product!