Baking - The Beginners Guide

[Mehnaz]

@Sunset_Eyes

^ Honest to God Sara - so very well done! Not sure why you are saying you cant do as YES you can!!!

Girlies, i have a problem and a question.

So as you know i want any excuse to bake a cake so i can practice for my son’s 1st birthday inshallah and i want it to have a wow factor. So picture this. BUT i would love to hear some ideas which will give it that “oh my GOD, you made this” comment…haha! Sad i know!

M thinking of baking a 12" square cake with white fondant icing. Than another 7 or 8" cake topped with white fondant icing which will be placed on the 12" cake. So now you have 2 tiered cake. Then i want to have children’s building blocks on it stacked on top of each other spelling out my son’s name. Now on top of the 12" cake but around the 8" cake, i will have some zoo animals ie, lion, monkey, giraffe etc. Just by the blocks, i would write happy 1st birthday (son’s name) written with an edible marker. Basically i want to have elegance, style and beauty oozing out from this cake…you girlies getting the idea?

Now, the problem! I thought id practice making the blocks so i baked a normal square cake and cut them into 3" blocks. Resulted in crumbs which was very hard to buttercream and then top it off with fondant. The fondant was not even and smooth at all as the crumbs were getting the way. So i thought that wouldnt work and thought there has to be another way so i came across below:

Multi Mini Squares

Its expensive but i think that would solve my crumbly problem. They are 2". What do you think?
Do you think the size is ok and suitable to create building blocks?
Should i freeze these cakes and large cakes before i ice them?
When i do ice the cakes after freezing them and when they are defrosted, will the water not run into the icing?

I would love to hear your suggestions and ideas! Remember! Elegance and WOW are key words to my ears! Hehe!

The idea sounds good … 12" and an 8" on top? It will leave a good amount of ‘ledge’ (on the 12" cake).

How many animals were you planning on putting on the 8" cake? You won’t be able to do many, I’m guessing around 4 max. On my 10" cake, I was able to put 6 animals, plus a candle in the centre … so make sure you figure out the size you want to use first.

I am a bit confused as to where you plan on putting the building blocks? I think it will be a bit difficult to make 3 dimensional blocks. But, SGC might have an easy way. What if you made flat blocks out of fondant instead and have them going across the side of the 12" cake? I think that might be easier …

Freezing and icing the cakes is super easy. Just freeze them the normal way and defrost them the night before you plan on prepping and decorating it. Leave them in the fridge the night before. There won’t be any water leaking, I’ve done this many times and have never had any issues.