Specialty Ruffle Cake Tutorial

Ruffle cakes seems to be appearing everywhere these days. So I thought it was time to try it myself and I wanted to share with you here.

Red Velvet cakes seem to be hard to get by here. But this was all the customer wanted, red velvet cake for a small birthday party with the girls.

As there was no special design request at all, this called for an opportunity to make a buttercream ruffle design.

Here is how I made it:

I filled and crumb coated the red velvet cake layers with white chocolate buttercream. Since I decided to have a smooth top for the writing I put a thicker layer on there and smoothed and hot knifed.

The sides can be rough looking as they will be covered with ruffles anyway.

Where I have seen, mostly a petal tip from #101-104 was used. Any size works. Since the smallest size I have is 104, but I didn’t want too thick of an icing layer, I used basket weave tip #47. Since only one side is combed and the other is smooth it also worked perfectly.

Piping the ruffles is as simple as it gets. Start on the bottom. Hold the bag with tip vertically on the side of the cake. For basket weave tip hold combed side downwards; for petal tips hold the thicker part towards the cake.

Apply even pressure and pipe back-and-forth in your desired width while slowly moving upwards on side.
I didn’t trust that I would keep the ruffles in even width, so I used a ruler to make markings.

Proceed in the same way all around the cake almost touching the previous row of ruffles. Make sure to end with the smooth side up if using a basket weave tip.

Once all ruffles were done I piped one continuous band of buttercream on top of all ruffles to finish them off.

If there isn’t going to be any writing or decoration on top you can also continue the ruffles over the edge to the center. Decrease the width the closer you get to the center.

This is an easy way to achieve an elegant look on your cakes. Best of all, it is a lot quicker than trying to get those perfectly smooth sides.

Red and White Topsy Turvy Cake

This posts has two reasons for celebration. First, it is the 100th post on this blog. In not even 1.5 years I found 100 reasons to post about about something cake related

Also, this is the cake I made for my little sister’s 10th birthday a few weeks ago. I shared with you at the beginning of summer how she requested cupcakes for her last day of school to share with her classmates since she wouldn’t be able to celebrate her birthday with them in the middle of summer.

For the first time she was giving me free reign on the cake. Usually she knows what she would like, but this time she wanted a surprise.

I don’t have to be asked twice for that. Finally a chance to try all the techniques I wanted to for a while already.

Finally, a topsy turvy cake with lace border on the bottom tier and quilting pattern on top.
It was a vanilla cake with raspberry filling and buttercream, and strawberry cake with chocolate buttercream.

If you are interested, here is how I made my sister’s special 10th birthday cake:

First, the numbers that are to come on top. I printed and cut out a 1 and 0 in a font I liked and traced it on white gumpaste, each number twice. While the gumpaste was still soft I pressed some wires on one set with a little gum glue and let everything dry for a day.

After a day, I brushed a little gum glue on the wired set of numbers and attached the other pair on top and let them dry a little more. It is very hot and dry here at the moment, so my gumpaste piece dry a lot faster than at other times of the year.

On to the cake…

We had only a small family gathering, so I made a 6″ vanilla bean cake; one 2″ high layer and one 3″ high. And also a 4″ strawberry cake; both layers 2″ high.

All layers are torted to 1″ height. I filled three layers of the vanilla bean cake with raspberry fruit filling. I did the same with the top to layers but didn’t attach them yet.

For the topsy turvy effect I carved off part of the cake to create a slope. I simply placed a long serrated knife at the top right and cut aiming for the left bottom.

Then I placed the sloped top two layers onto the other three again with some raspberry filling. (Please close your eyes to the rough outer crumb on the cake, for some reason this time I had sticking issues when removing the layers from the pan.)

After icing the cake with raspberry buttercream, it is time to prepare the cavity for the next tier.

For that I am using a cake board in the size of the top cake (4″), place it onto the bottom tier, and with a small paring knife cut a circle around the cake board.

With the knife I carefully carve out the cake from within the cut circle trying to get a level surface.

The cavity is also iced with buttercream and then I am inserting three bubble tea straws of the same length for support of the next tier.

Then I covered the cake in white fondant and attached it to the prepared cake board. You can see a little bit of torn fondant in the cavity. That’s where I pressed in the 4″ cake circle to make sure it will fit the cake. All of this will be hidden by the top tier anyway.

Almost done with the bottom tier. Onto the next…

Here I proceeded almost exactly as on the previous one, with the exception that no cavity has to be carved in. Furthermore, I also used a 1″ high cake drum on the bottom for additional height.

The strawberry cake with chocolate buttercream is covered in red fondant. For the quilting effect I used a trick that the very talented Jessica recently shared on her blog http://jessicakesblog.blogspot.com.

As she recommended I used photo paper cut at the angle I wanted the lines to go because it doesn’t stick. It will nicely wrap around the cake while tracing along the edge with the quilting tool. There is also a little cut mark which will make a small indentation for the next line and help to keep and evenly spaced pattern.

Thank you very much for this great tip, Jessica!

For the pillow fold like effect where the lines crossed I used this star shaped gum paste tool. All the indentations where then filled with one white sugar pearl.

With a little bit of royal icing in between I stacked the tiers on top of each other.

For the lace border on the bottom tier I first brushed the mold with a little bit of ivory luster dust.

Then I rolled out a strip of red fondant in approximate width and height of the mold.

Place the fondant onto the mold and gently press down evenly all around for the fondant to take on the imprint. With a small paring knife cut away all excess along the edges of the lace pattern.

Brush the back with a little bit of gum glue and carefully attach the lace to the cake. I needed another half strip to go around the cake. Try to have the seam lines meet in a way that completes the pattern.

To complete the design I placed a white pearl border in between the tiers. From white fondant I cut out the letter of her name and made them stand out with some red disco dust; the same with the numbers on top of the cake.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Let me know if you have any questions or feedback, I am always happy to hear from you

As August is coming to an end I wish we all can make the best of what is left from the summer.

Specialty Hello Kitty Cake

This Hello Kitty cake was created for a special going-away party. It is a combination of several designs the customer found and I suggested.

The top is adorned with a Hello Kitty cut out from white, pink and hot pink fondant. She also has a brown flower with pink center in her head.

It is a red velvet cake with vanilla buttercream covered in light pink fondant with a fondant band on the bottom. A large elegant bow from gumpaste in the same shade of pink is joining Hello Kitty on top of the cake. It is dusted with luster dust.

For dusting a big piece like this, I use a large cosmetic brush purchased exclusively for dusting fondant and gumpaste.

All around the sides of the cake there are fondant flower cut outs in pink and brown with opposite colour centers. The pink parts are also dusted with luster dust.

Long Boarder on Bowling Alley Birthday Cake

For this fun cake two sports are interestingly combined. Nicholas is an avid long boarder. His mom says he is out all day boarding. When it came to celebrating his 11th birthday he requested to go bowling. So for his cake his mom had the fun idea to show him boarding down the bowling alley.

This is the fourth cake I am creating for this family. I was honored to also make these three cakes for them this year.

For this cake the bowling alley is made from vanilla bean cake with white chocolate buttercream carved into shape. Then is was covered in fondant which was painted as I am showing here to create the wood grain effect.

Fondant bowling pins are set up on one end and and a figurine depicting Nicholas on his longboard is on the other end. He is dressed in is favorite skate shorts and orange shirt.

Toy Story Buzz Lightyear Cake with tutorial

I was very excited to create this cake for Jak’s 4th birthday. It is the second cake I was making for him after last year’s Diego & Baby Jaguar cake and already the fifth cake for this family.

Jak is also the one made the awesome connection between his brother’s Lightning McQueen cake and the “race car” I was delivering it in

So no question, this cake was extra special to me.

On our facebook page Jak’s mom left this wonderful comment:

Regina, you have done it again!! you always make our kid’s birthdays memorable!!! the cake is always the highlight! don’t know what we would do without you! thank you SO much!

If you are interested, here is how I made the cake:

I started out with two layers of vanilla bean white cake and one half-ball cake that I torted and filled with raspberry fruit filling.

Next I iced the round cake with white chocolate buttercream, let it set up in the fridge for a few minutes and then smooth out the surface with a hot spatula.

I wanted the round cake to be dark blue for the universe. In the past often had issues coloring fondant a solid dark color. It will usually take so much food coloring that it starts breaking down the fondant, making it tear easily when trying to cover the cake.

So this time I thought to try something new with painting the fondant covered cake. I started out with fondant pre-tinted in a similar shade I was going for. Next time though, I think it will work just as well with a white fondant base.

In a small bowl I simply mixed a little bit of royal blue food coloring with a couple table spoons of water and started painting the mixture onto the cake to cover the fondant but not soaking it.

I used the biggest food brush I had but for the next time I will get a bigger chip brush to achieve a coverage with fewer streaks.

The painted cake has to remain uncovered to order for the fondant to dry quickly. For me it took only 15 minutes and the paint would not come off anymore when touched. But we live in a very dry climate. It might take longer if it is more humid where you live.

For the planet on top of the round cake I torted and iced the half-ball cake the same way. To get the patterned effect into the fondant covering I used orange, yellow, and white. Rolled into thick sausages, twisted together, folded over, twisted again. There is almost no wrong way to do this, just don’t overmix the colors otherwise it becomes a one colored blend.

When rolling out the twisted fondant colors this wonderful marbling effect occurs.

I covered the half-ball with the marbled fondant and stacked it onto the painted blue round cake using a few bubble tea straws as supports and royal icing as glue.

To finish off the design I cut out fondant circles (some marbled as well) for planets and stars to decorate the sides all around the cake and gray meteor rocks.

Buzz Lightyear is a purchased candle. Also purchased are the three-eyed alien icing head on the planet.

I hope you enjoyed this picture documentation of the making of the Buzz Lightyear cake.

As always I am looking forward to your comments, questions, and feedback.

Specialty Baby Shower Cake

For a baby shower I was asked to create this cute cake resembling a sleeping baby (or the lower part of one )

The marble cake is filled with chocolate buttercream and frosted in vanilla buttercream. It is decorated in baby pink and baby blue fondant bows and dots as they didn’t know the gender of the baby yet.

The baby’s bottom is a half-ball shaped cake covered in white fondant with ruffles on the sides where the legs start. The legs and feet are made of fondant covered rice krispy treats.

A fondant blanket with the same polka dot pattern is covering the baby.

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