Baptism Cake

A Baptism cake for my little niece.  10" square and 8" round Vanilla cake filled with Lemon Mousse and covered in a pale pink, Lemon Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC).  The flowers, butterflies and ribbon are MMF and the cross is made out of modeling chocolate dusted in pearl dust.

This was also the 1st time I covered a square cake in IMBC and I must have spent about 2 hours just smoothing it out to get the perfectly sharp corners and sides.  Round cakes are so much easier!  I love using the upside down technique to ice my cakes - Helps with getting nice, leveled tops and nice, crisp corners with.  Here are other posts about using the upside down method which I use on basically anything that firms up in the fridge with...regular buttercream, IMBC, ganache:
- Covering a Cake in Ganache
- Music Themed 80th Birthday Cake (and IMBC Recipe)

There were a few things I had one to this cake that I would not have typically done.  I had to drive the cake 40 minutes away and keep it stored in the car for about 2 more hours during the ceremony and until we got to the reception location in the midst of a heat wave in the middle of winter (SoCal!).  So to ensure the cake stayed intact throughout the morning, I took extra precaution in adding a regular, stiffened buttercream dam to add extra support for the lemon mousse filling.  Typically when I fill a cake with mousse and use IMBC, I don't add a dam since I don't like to mix in regular buttercream with IMBC.  Either way, just fill the cake, stack and wrap it up really tightly with saran wrap, place the wrapped cakes back inside the pan they were baked in, add another layer of tightly wrapped saran wrap and then put the whole thing in the fridge overnight to settle and for the mousse to set....Or use a springform pan or a cake ring and build up the cakes inside them.

The following day, add a layer of IMBC on the cake board, place the bottom of the cake on it, add a thick layer of IMBC along the top and smooth it out.

Right Side Up

Add a layer of wax or parchment paper and use a straight-edged dough scraper to smooth that out and get rid of any air bubbles caught under there.

Upside Down

Place a larger, stable board over that and quickly but carefully flip the entire cake over so it's upside down.  Use a Leveler to make sure it's leveled, if not, gently press down where needed to get it leveled.

Still Upside Down

Add a thin coat of IMBC around the cake filling in any grooves and gaps - be sure to press the IMBC into the gaps and fill it up really well.

Still Upside Down

Layer by layer, add the IMBC around the cake just until you are about 1/4" out past the cake board.  You want to add more than needed and just scrape off the excess.

Still Upside Down - use the cake board as a guide to scrape off the excess IMBC

Keep scraping away using a clean and warm blade with each swipe.  With IMBC, you don't want to use too hot of a blade or it'll turn the BC slightly yellow - patchy yellow.  I just heat up a moist dish cloth in the microwave and wipe the scraper with it to warm it up just enough to glide smoothly over the BC.  Stick the entire cake back into either the freezer or fridge for at least a 1/2 hour.  Remove from the fridge, flip the cake back over and carefully peel off the parchment/wax paper off the top.   Smooth any imperfections you may have with an  angled spatula and put the entire cake back into the fridge to stay firm while you prep the decorations.  It's much easier to decorate an IMBC cake while it's cold and hard.  As soon as it starts to come back down to room temperature and the IMBC gets soft, just stick it back in the fridge for a few minutes to firm up again and continue decorating.

I did keep the bottom tier in the freezer overnight all smoothed and covered in IMBC and the top tier with the ribbon and name plaque in the fridge.  On the morning of the baptism, I stacked the cakes and added the flowers and butterflies the ribbon along the bottom tier, packed it all up inside a large box and ran out the door to the baptism all within an hour (I wanted to cakes as cold as possible for the long morning in the car).  We made sure to park the car under a tree for some shade and luckily, our morning stayed cool.   The chilled cake kept the inside of the box cool as well and made it to the reception intact and unmelted.  It all defrosted perfectly by the time we had to eat it.

The butterflies were made using a butterfly cutter then lightly painted in pink gel colors and dusted in pearl dust.  The cross was molded by hand, an impression mat was used to add some texture to the front and back and then dusted with pearl dust.  I used 2 different sized flower blossom cutters to make the flowers and dusted those with pearl dust as well.

I completely ran out of time in the midst of everything else going on and had to cover the cake board with Royal Icing - wish I had just an extra day to cover it in fondant.  But the cake still turned out perfect...perfect for little Emily.

Some types of tools used:

               

Polka Dot Baby Shower Cake

A small, baby shower cake decorated in polka dots, ribbon roses and a baby girl for a friend’s co-worker. She had given me a picture of a cake that she wanted which happened to be from the locally famous, Cinderella Cakes. She wanted it to be pretty much the same except for the baby to be sitting, with green eyes, and a side pony tail of brown hair…plus, a binky in its mouth. I modeled the sitting baby after a photo of my daughter when she was barely able to sit using her arms to help hold her body up. The face was a challenge! 3 hours and 3 faces later, I finally had one I was happy with. After trying the make the face a 2nd time, I finally pulled up in front of the computer, and looked over some of Lorraine McKay's figures and alas, I had a face…why did I not do this, 2 hours ago! Her figures are remarkably beautiful and a true inspiration.

Here is face #1, at least the start of it, by the time I got the eyes in and the hair, it didn’t go well with what I was trying to do. Face #2 (no picture) was just way too simple and cartoon-looking. Face #3, perfect!

For the roses, I used a video posted by Rouvelee Ilagan to help figure out how to make them. Although I didn’t have a pasta roller, I used my rolling pin to roll the fondant out as thin as possible, folded the top half over then rolled up the roses. I also cut up some leaves free hand, pinched in the bottom half and lay them over an empty paper towel tube covered in parchment paper to dry them with a slight curve. I then dusted them with a little bit of petal dust and steamed them to set. These roses were pretty simple, fast, and fun to do.

The cakes were small, a 6” and 4” round: Vanilla-lemon cake with lemon mousse filling and lemon buttercream. They were then covered in MMF. The white polka dot border and lettering were piped with royal icing....Welcome Baby Isabella!