May 2, 2010

1st Communion Cake with Rosary and Chalice


I really love how this cake turned out!  My husband's coworker's 8 year old daughter wanted me to make her 1st Communion Cake.  A few months prior, I had made her a Minnie Mouse Christmas Birthday Cake and she didn't forget - how sweet is that!

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Being Catholic and loving anything pink and dainty, I came up this cake design.  The cake was a 9” round white almond sour cream cake filled with white chocolate mousse, covered in white chocolate ganache then marshmallow fondant.


The chalice was made out of gumpaste using a little plastic cup as a mold and the stem was built up from 2 separate gumpaste pieces I sculpted freehand. Once it was all dry, I dusted the chalice in Wilton White Pearl Dust to give it some shine.  The Wilton pearl dust is one of my favorite dusts.  It has a nice luster to it and can easily be dry dusted over gumpaste or painted on with vodka.


I also filled the chalice with 3 Communion Bread disks made from gumpaste.


The pink and white blossoms were made with a 5 petal cutter in 3 different sizes. I used a hard candy diamond mold to hold each blossom as they dried…worked perfectly. Once dried, I dusted each with Wilton Pink Pearl Dust and Wilton White Pearl Dust.


My favorite feature of the cake was the Rosary which wrapped around the entire cake. I piped each bead with royal icing then painted them with Wilton White Pearl Dust. I had not done any type of swag design before and worried about the spacing of each section not being even, so I drew up a template to help me get everything perfectly lined up and evenly placed around the cake (I do admittedly confess that I am a bit OCD-ish).


The cake sat over a square baseboard covered in very light, pink fondant and adorned with a pink, satin ribbon. I also added some blossoms to the board to dress it up a bit. I was extremely happy with how beautiful the cake turned out and hope she enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed making it…I couldn’t help but think back to my 1st Holy Communion and at how special that day was.

The cake was crumb coated in white chocolate ganache the upside down method.  If you would like to read up on how it was done, visit my post, Covering a Cake in Ganache.  Ganache crumb coats have turned out to be my favorite method to torte a cake.  It dries nice and firm, and gives you those beautiful crisp, sharp edges.

12 comments:

  1. Beautiful cake. What is the template on top for? and how do you write so nicely on the cake?

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  2. Thank you! I used the star shape on the top to divide the cake evenly into 5 so I could line up the template for the side arch perfectly (you can see the side arches have gaps between each one for the flower and strand). I'm sure there's a better way but this made sense to me. And for the writing, I print out the lettering in the size, font and arch needed and trace it lightly over the cake. Then very carefully and patiently pipe RI over it using a moist brush and toothpick to move and shape each strand into place perfectly.

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  3. I love this chalice! What product do i need to create this masterpiece?

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  4. The chalice is made out of MMF mixed with Tylose Powder which essentially turns it into gumpaste. The cup portion was molded over a plastic cup that I dusted with corn starch to keep it from sticking and then hand molded the stems as you can see in one of the photos above. Let each piece dry overnight then attached it all together with a little bit of piping gel and dusted it all with pearl luster dust. HTH.

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  5. Does the icing need to dry fullly before removing it from the mould?

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    Replies
    1. It needs to dry enough to hold its shape or else it may just droop and sag. Best to let it dry overnight.

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  6. How did you make the stems?

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    Replies
    1. I hand molded the stems and it's made out of 2 separate parts.

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  7. AnonymousMay 08, 2012

    This cake is beautiful! I would love to recreate the rosary just like you did on 2 communion cakes that I have to do this weekend. can you share with me how you created the template for the top of the cake? Im doing an 8" round...thanks in advance!!!!

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    Replies
    1. Since the rosary is broken up into 5 sections with 10 beads in each, I used a star shape to help divide the cake up evenly into five then drew an arch that fit inside each section and evenly broke that down into 10 - You can see it in one of the photos posted above. There may be an easier way to do it that that is how I did it.

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  8. AnonymousMay 19, 2012

    How did you make the scalloped edge on the stems

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    Replies
    1. I rolled the stick stem of fondant, flattened the end and used a round scallop cutter for the edge.

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