cake decorating help

[Michele]

I am making this cake for Daegan's birthday party tomorrow (nothing like a little last minute detail planning ).



I made it for his party in Florida and my decorating was abysmal.



I want it to look more like this...




My white icing/glaze was too runny. It was basically powdered sugar and milk....the cake may have been too warm at that point, but it was still hard to smooth without being too runny. Then for the colored part I bought some tube icing that said it was dryset or whatever, but it was really runny too....and the cake definitely wasn't too warm then.

Any suggestions would be great! And if you know what that blue sugar-sand stuff is, let me know. I think it looks cool.

Anyway, it's really last minute but please help if you can!

[samssugarmomma]

Could the blue stuff on the bottom be colored sugar? Or would sugar be too fine? I can't tell on my laptop how big the blue crystals are. I just dyed some sugar for my husband's birthday cake. It was easy - just like dyeing icing. (Add a few drops of food coloring to the sugar and stir)

[Sheherezade]

That's definitely colored sugar crystals. You can get them in any decorating section -- in a cook shop or at Michael's craft store. I have a huge selection that someone got for me as a gift from William Sonoma. I think the brown stuff could be a cinnamon sugar. It looks much finer than the decorating crystals. I'd say the decoration candy is sweet tart or something similar - and those candy dots that you peel off the paper strips. The green strips are those apple sour straw candy. You can probably get those in the grocery store. I'd coat the sucker with whatever the glaz-y stuff is on the octopus and then use the sugars to decorate the sand and ocean. You can attach the candies with more dots of icing.

I love the cake pattern BTW! I'm sure the second time will be easier to execute!

I wouldn't say that was abysmal! It was definitely better than the Publix cake my kids got for their first birthdays...

[Urowife]

Michele, how do you actually bake that cake? I'm assuming the tin has to be upside down in the oven, but does it come with something to balance it?

It's a really cute cake! In the "professional" picture, it looks like there is minimal frosting on it, but more candy bits. It's much easier to decorate something if you are just sticking pre-made bits of frosting or candy.

Anyway, I hope it turned out well!

[Flynn]

Cute cake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Vanquisher]

For the octopus's coloring:

You need to make Royal icing. Then, you can can color it bluish-gray, and thin it out with a little extra water to make it thinner.

The eyes should be made and piped with royal icing on a piece of parchement paper and allowed to dry and harden before being attached to the octopus with another dab of royal icing.

The candies for tentacles appear to be stuck in buttercream icing, which can be colored lavendar with a small amount of purple. Go to Walmart or Michaels and they have a cake decorating section in which they carry gel food coloring. Use this as opposed to drops so that your consistency stays even. You can even buy canned buttercream or a box of royal icing mix if that is easier for you, but they are not that hard to do from scratch.

You will also need a piping bag with a few tips. THe sell and the star fish are both piped using a star shaped tip, like a #16. The tentacles are piped using a round tip.

The blue is definitely colored sugar. You can buy this at a cake decorating store or make it with large sugar crustals and blue food coloring.

The sand looks to me like it might be airbrushed. I think there might be icing on there that has been airbrushed, but you could also use fine grain sugar that is colored on top of similarly colored icing for a similar effect.

The candies look like smarties, but I can't tell for the scale. The green does look like licorice type whips.

Good luck!

[Michele]

Thanks everyone. I didn't get your message Heidi until just now, after the party.....but I sent Russ to the store for candies you all figured out. I did the mik/sugar icing again and it was runny again. Everyone still thought the cake was cute though.

I've never made royal icing and I do think I need to invest in some piping bags and tips. I'll have go add it to my kitchen wish-list!!

I have the plastic tips that attach to the tube icing. I used that and it worked ok. The small tubes of writing icing were also runny again. The package clearly boasts that they are 'stackable'!

The pan comes with a recipe, but it also says the pan is a 10 cup capacity, so I think you could use any recipe. It sits on the counter to be filled easily, and you put it on a cookie sheet in the oven. If you look closely at that top pic, it looks like three of the tentacles are dented....thats how it sits flat on a counter/to be baked. The first time I made it, it rose well above the top...this time it didn't....I also didn't have cake flour this time and used whole wheat instead (cake was dry and grainy). The first time I tried to flour the pan myself....tons of clump flour on the outside of the cake....this time, I used the Crisco spray with flour and it worked perfectly!

I guess I just need to keep practicing!!! And I'll have to give the royal icing a try.

I'll post a pic as soon as I find the cord to connect the camera to the computer.

[Vanquisher]

Next time you try give me a call. I have made enough specialty cakes to help you out.

10 cup capacity means about 2 boxed cake mixes if you wanted to go the easy way.