Awhile back, I needed to make a cake for a friend. The plan was that MC was going to take it tailgating at the University of Minnesota Gophers football game.
The problem was, I has no ideas. Nothing. The cake was baked and I stared intently at its bare rectangular form and cursed it silently in my head. Finally, I went to the Twitter and threw a shout out that said something to the effect of ‘HELP’.
And help arrived in the form of Marie from Celebration Generation.
Her instructions were easy enough – go find a picture of whatever I needed (in this case, Goldy Gopher, the U of M mascot) and print it out. I was once again out of printer ink, so I sketched out Goldy, and cut out an outline to set on top of my cake. I used a sharp knife and slowly cut around the outline of my template:
Since one of Bitty’s favorite shows is Cake Boss, I knew my next step was to ‘dirty ice’ the cake. I had put the cake in the fridge uncovered for an hour or so after I cut it out. This firms up the cake and makes it a little less crumbly. Then I threw a huge plop of my frosting on top and covered the entire cake:
{It doesn’t matter if crumbs get in the frosting, they will be covered in the final coating of frosting.}
Next, you’ll need some wax paper. Although I didn’t know it yet, this is where the whole thing blew up. Marie’s instructions were quite simple but I didn’t remember this step… and it’s kind of crucial.
{Place wax paper over your printed picture}
Since I had cut out the shape on my cake, I needed to reverse my picture so when I flipped the designed gopher head onto my cake, it would be facing the right way. Hang with me for a minute and I’ll come back to this; I know it sounds confusing…
Also, since I am not a professional, I did not have the tips and sqeezy bag decorating thing. So I improvised:
I scooped my frosting into a zip lock bag and squeezed it all into one corner of the bag, trying my best to make sure there were no air bubbles in the frosting. Then I cut a small hole in the corner of the bag. All I needed to do now was trace the outline of my printout with the icing:
Once the outline is done, place your creation in the freezer and let it harden. Then you can fill in your outline with whatever colors you need. For Goldy I would have used brown for his face and white for his teeth and eyes. After piping the other colors in, place it back in the freezer until it’s completely hardened. When it’s ready you would just flip it over on top of your cake and bang! you look like a professional baker.
However, since I didn’t make a mirror image of my picture, I would not have been able to flip the frozen creation on top of my cake. It would have been backwards, dagnabit. If I had just left the cake as a rectangle, instead of cutting out the shape, it would have turned out just fine.
Of course, you could just head over to Celebration Generation. Marie has these instructions, but better because she’s an actual, real life baker. Go ahead. Check out her awesomeness. You know you want to. ;* )
