One of my cousins decided to come over for a visit, and I decided to make a cake so that I would be showered with compliments during his visit. Again, my round cake pan saved the day by offering a solution to what sort of cake to make. Because there would likely be non-Pokémon trainers eating the cake with us, I chose the easily recognizable, regular Pokéball over something more stylish, like the Dive Ball.
As you can see in the picture, I iced the bottom of the cake first and then placed the board on top of it in a process similar to the Pigfarts Cake. Then I filled the holes in with red icing because it tastes the best. I used Wilton’s Ready-to-Use Red Icing because it’s extremely difficult to make red icing without the icing turning pink, hurting your wrist mixing it pink, and having a temper tantrum over the failed colour. I figure the extra cost is better than giving up making the icing, eating the cake in rebellious fury, offering my cousin nothing but my sob cake story while realizing that all of my problems are Privileged White People problems, which would ultimately result in me abandoning all of my worldly possessions to become a homeless man (surgery would be required) complete with a small sad-looking dog wearing a bandanna. So, really, buying the icing seems like the best bet.
Once I placed the two pieces of the cakes together, I used tip 18 to make the black line separating the two halves of the pokéball. I prefer to interpret the black line around the pokéball as being at a lower depth than the red and white halves so that there is a clear break between them. The smaller 18 tip illustrates that depth and helps to make the white button “pop” from the cake more.
When I finished the black line, I filled in the remainder of the white with tip 21 and then covered the top half in red also with tip 21 for consistency. I chose tip 21 because, as the larger star tip, I thought it would take less time to fill in. However, it came with a bit of a “pillowy” effect where the ball looks soft and malleable instead of hard like a Pokéball. Anyway, at least it looks edible!
So I had leftover orange and black icing from a Halloween cake I made for my cousin and I was going to a friend’s house in a few hours. (The cake for my cousin will likely be posted sometime less relevant.) There seemed to be only one thing I could do to solve both my icing issues and the Halloween-themed-food issue. If you missed the picture at the top of the post, I decided to make a Karl-Pilkington-as-an-orange cake. My friend does very much approve of all things Karl Pilkington.
I used one 8″ round cake (the other 8″ cake was busy being eaten by my father figure) to keep the circular head. I printed off a picture of Karl from The Ricky Gervais Show since it would be simplified enough for me to illustrate. Using the 18 tip I iced his face mainly by following the picture. I used Wilton’s Ready-to-Use Black Icing because I had a tube lying around. Once I completed the act of (beautifully) representing his face on the cake, I gave myself a hearty pat on the back and briefly sought out more attention.
I then used my leftover orange icing to cover in the orange portion of his head, which is most of it if you are looking at all the pictures. (You should be, I’m taking them for you.) I used tip 21 because I was supposed to leave shortly and I wanted to get things done quickly. I debated getting a bit of green to make the stem part of the orange, but I decided against it since it seemed like it would require a lot of work for one little star.
After looking at Karl’s depressed face I realized the problem. His sorrow simply wasn’t represented clearly enough. I went over the black once more with tip 18 to make his features as clear as possible. I am quite certain it was worth the extra effort.
All in all, it took me around an hour to decorate, and I received at least five minutes of compliments. Well worth the trouble.
To prepare for myself for the font, I took an image of the classic “Mountain Dew” sign. I then used Royal Icing to outline the letters with tip 5, but I made it like a stencil so it would stay together as one piece. You can see the stencil I made on the image below. I let it dry overnight.
Using the Mountain Dew recipe in the previous post, I stacked two 8″ square cakes on top of each other. And using the Mountain Dew Buttercream Icing Recipe from the previous post, I coloured the icing “moss green” and iced the cake. Because the icing was a bit watery, it actually went across fairly smooth. As you can see from the picture to the left, I am very sloppy when it comes to icing a cake.
After this, I slowly peeled off the stencil image with a spatula and dropped it onto the cake. It broke for me, so I had to guess as to where some pieces went, but it fit together quite nicely. As you can see, I had a bit of trouble with the “W” falling apart and couldn’t to guess where the pieces went. So I simply followed the reference image for that section.
I filled in the yellow portion of the cake. I worked right over the stencil since the Royal Icing melted and softened underneath the Mountain Dew icing. It was a bit watery to work with, but generally kept together quite well. I used Golden Yellow for the colour, but in retrospect I suppose Lemon Yellow would have made more sense.
I used the Wilton’s Ready-to-Use Red Icing for the “dew” portion. I worked with the tube because I can never get the red I make to look as sharp as the tube does. It looks a bit watery in the “d” because I used an old tube and I guess the icing didn’t stay firm. So I threw it out and moved to a new tube for the rest.
I filled in the rest of the piece with the Mountain Dew Icing. It was wonderfully straight forward.
For every section, I used the handy Star Tip 21 to keep the stars consistent and pleasantly large so it wouldn’t take forever to fill in.
I think it only took me a few hours to fill in, but making the icing and the stencil took a bit more time.
Do you have fantasies of swimming in a pool filled with Mountain Dew that include a very long shower afterwards? Do you participate in extreme sports? Or do you simply drink Mountain Dew?
Then this recipe might just be for you!
This recipe fills two 9 inch pans, two eight inch pans, or one 9×13 pan.
Ingredients:
1 cup margarine (or butter if you want to enjoy yourself)
2 cups sugar
Zest from 1 lemon and 2 limes (If you are unfamiliar with zesting like I am, I suggest using a grater to remove the outer peel of the fruit. I originally used a potato peeler which made the slices of peel large, unappealing, and often inedible.)
4 large eggs
3/4 cup Mountain Dew
1/4 cup of lemon juice
1/4 cup of lime juice
2 & 3/4 cups of all purpose flour
1 & 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of salt
Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Beat margarine on medium for 30 seconds.
3. Add sugar and zest. See the peels in the butter and consider making something else.
4. Beat on medium until light and fluffy.
5. Beat in eggs, making sure nothing lingers on the side of the bowl.
6. Mix flower, baking powder, and salt into the margarine concoction on low for a bit.
7. Add Mountain Dew. Pour yourself a glass and drink as a reward.
8. Add lemon & lime juice and observe the suspicious smell of the lime.
9. Mix until they’ve combined.
10. Pour mixture into pan(s), smoothing out the batter.
11. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
12. Wait at least 15 minutes before dumping out of pans and an hour before icing the cake.
Mountain Dew Buttercream Icing:
Just as a note, the colouring and steps 5-6 cover how to make icing for the cake in “Doing the Dew: Part Two” which may or may not be posted yet. If you use this recipe, your icing will not come out the stark white buttercream icing usually becomes. For colouring buttercream icing, I usually colour with toothpicks and mixing with the beater. Due to laziness issues, I usually take out icing for the colours that require the smallest amount and then beat in colour for the icing that requires the most icing. This recipe assumes you’re like me.
Ingredients: 1 cup vegetable shortening (about half a box of a 1lb box of Crisco)
4 cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon of lime juice
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
2-5 tablespoons of Mountain Dew
Moss and Golden Yellow icing colouring (or your preferred colours)
Directions: 1. Drop 1 cup of vegetable shortening into mixing bowl. Try not to imagine it in your stomach.
2. Pour 4 cups of icing sugar.
3. Add lemon and lime juice and 1 tablespoon of Mountain Dew.
4. Mix concoction on a low setting, adding tablespoons of Mountain Dew depending on preferred consistency. (Reminder: less amount of Mountain Dew equals stiffer consistency.)
5. Separate around 1 cup for yellow colouring and the remainder for green icing.
6. Mix colour in until desired colour or until you give up.
7. Decorate while you drink more Mountain Dew.
A PIGFARTS CAKE FEATURING HEADMASTER RUMBLEROAR
Draco Malfoy borrowed my Spaceship to visit.
I’m worried this cake might need an introduction because its reference may be a bit vague to some people. Pigfarts is the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on Mars. Rumbleroar, a lion who can talk, is the Headmaster. Draco Malfoy would rather be attending Pigfarts than Hogwarts. At least, he does in A Very Potter Musical by the wonderful Team Star Kid. We tried to get tickets to A Very Potter Sequel, but, alas, we ended up watching it on Youtube. So we hooked up my computer to my TV and watched it on there. Obviously, I had to make a cake to celebrate the occasion. (My friend also is leaving to teach overseas, so it is her “Bon Voyage” cake too.)
I made Rumbleroar using Color Flow icing. I blatantly lifted the Rumbleroar from Team Star Kid’s Logo. I used White Royal Icing for the outlines (so I wouldn’t have to make black) and coloured small portions of Color Flow icing to fill in Rumbleroar. His body is copper (it’s more fleshy than I would have liked), his mane and tail ruff is brown and copper, and his hat is blue and lemon yellow.
I used tip 2 for the outlines when I traced the image. I knew tip 3 would be too thick, and I think tip 1 might be too thin. Tip 2 may have been a bit thick for his muscle-outlines, his muzzle, and the moons on his hat (oh yes, those are moons), but it generally kept his tail together well. I made a spike coming out of his chest to keep him in the cake, which worked very well. I think this is my only Color Flow creation that hasn’t broken. I gave it two days to dry.
Next up, Mars! I made the cake the day before, and eventually I managed to get Mars out of a Round Cake Pan. So here;s another planet with my round cake pan, if you can count the Death Star as a planet, which I apparently do. I considered using the classic star tip to decorate the cake. Originally, I was just going to make plain ol’ Mars, but I decided to add the words “WELCOME TO PIGFARTS” to make it more exciting. Also, who wouldn’t want to the word “Pigfarts” on their cake? Then I remembered another show that used a planet with words on it.
So using the texture and colours of Mystery Science Theatre, I created Pigfarts. I used tip 3 for the letters and tip 5 for the planet to make the bumpy texture. I tried to use similar “dark side of the planet” shading, having the words being on a darker side of the planet. I coloured the words Golden Yellow and the planet “No-Taste Red”, Copper, and Orange. For the dark side of the planet, I mixed in Coco Powder to make it darker and I added black and more red. I used about half a cup of yellow icing for the letters.
Here is the High-Speed video of me decorating!
(Featuring Music from A Very Potter Musical)
According to my original footage, it took me 2 hours and 9 minutes to decorate. I made “Welcome to Pigfarts” first. I wrote the words out on a piece of paper so I knew which letters were the center. I then started at the center and worked on either side. I pretty much just guessed size and whatnot because apparently my planning skills are limited, which is why the letters are a little crooked. I did the letters first to make sure there was enough space on the planet for them all.
I filled in the natural planet colour, and then I used the rest of the natural planet colour icing to mix the dark planet colour. I have no idea how much icing each part used, and I have some colour leftover. When I finished the dark side of the planet, I realized the letters were hard to read, so I went over the letters again using two rows of dots instead of just one to make the letters stand out more. I think it worked!
The video also shows how the round cake pan works. I get this question a lot. Basically, there are two pans, each a half-circle. The pan comes with a stand to keep the cakes from rolling around while they are in the oven. Then after you’ve taken the cakes out, you basically just place one on top of the other. I’m usually too lazy to ice the inside and just make a circle with an X and fill in the edges. Usually I ice the bottom of the cake to keep it steady, but it really doesn’t need it. This one had no icing on the bottom. It’s a great pan. It’s easy to forget how many great things are round.
I’ve had melting issues with the Color Flow Icing. If I put the color flow pieces into the cake while I still have it being stored in a container, the inside gets too moist and the pieces melt. The melting usually breaks the pieces in half. So I shoved Rumbleroar into the cake just before my friend came over. That way I could leave the cake out without it getting dry and I wouldn’t have to shove Rumbleroar into the cake with her watching me and judging me. Plus I wanted it to be an amazing surprise, even though this cake may have been her suggestion. So if you’re using color flow, put your pieces in at the very last minute.
The last-minute addition was Draco Malfoy. This is more of a personal anecdote that’s totally awesome so it’s being told. For my birthday last year, two of my lovely friends (this one and one who is out of the country) bought me A Very Potter Musical related items. They found a Lion Pillow, freaked out in public yelling “Rumbleroar”, and then tried to find me a Spaceship. It’s a Toy Story 3 Buzz Lightyear spaceship. Or rocketship. I don’t know. Anyway it’s actually remote controlled and maybe I’ve played with it. Apparently I actually had a Draco Malfoy toy (which is not surprising, if you know me) and he actually fit in the spaceship! We also think the Draco looks a bit more like Lauren Lopez than Tom Felton anyway. They also wrote me an acceptance letter to Pigfarts. It is on display somewhere. Basically, my friends are awesome. So very awesome.
As is A Very Potter Sequel. It did not disappoint.
I made this cake for a very good friend’s birthday. I bought this character pan on clearance at Michael’s, and here is the link it on the Wilton Website. Rarely do I use character pans for what they’re intended (see Death Star cake), but obviously Superman needed to get made (and eaten).
When making a cake from a character pan, it’s good to note that the measurements of how much icing you need is very accurate. I hardly had any icing leftover, and it pretty much worked perfectly. The only fault is that they did not suggest less than 1/4 cup for anything, so I did have a bit of excess yellow icing. Who would have thought their directions would be accurate?
Again, I used Wilton’s Ready-to-Use Black Icing and Red Icing because the colours are too difficult to make. I used a lot of Royal Blue colouring for the blue, Lemon Yellow for the yellow, and Copper to make the skin tone.
I outlined the features first in black so that I know which parts went where. I didn’t ice the cake first in white because I was worried it would cover up the indents that the pan made, but I may have iced the sides. I used Tip 3 instead of Tip 1 and I did none of this “smearing with your finger” technique that they suggest for the eyebrows.
I iced in order of how I wanted the colours to stand out, starting with the white (in tip 21), then the blue, the yellow, the skin tone, and then the red (all with tip 16). I left the hair for last. I used tip 16, like the rest, but I wanted the curl to stand out more. So I piped straight-out (instead of making stars) to define Superman’s bangs and made the curl by curling the icing out.
If I made this cake again, I would ice the black outlines once more at the end to make the details in his face clearer.
I did not outline the cake in any border because I didn’t feel like the cake needed it. I generally like making borders, but I felt that the white sides were enough, and I didn’t want the border to take away from the rest of the cake.
This was a fairly simple cake to make since I was just following the directions. I think it took me around 5 hours to make, including the baking time, the cooling time, and the time I took to make the icing. I remember working on it past midnight for the party the following day. At least the cake was fresh?
We even colour-coded the candles.Happy Birthday Alex!
I thought it only appropriate to post the first Barbie cake I made before the other ones.
I made this cake October 16th, 2009 for one of my younger cousins. I asked what colours she wanted, so the cake turned out pink and purple. My cousin is a girl.
A few days before baking the cake, I made a ton of Apple Blossom flowers with Royal Icing. I used tip 101 for the petals and tip 2 for the dots on them. I don’t know the technical term for the dots. I made them on a flower nail with wax paper. I wanted them to have time to harden before I placed them on the cake. For colours, I stuck to pink and purple, though both are lighter than the buttercream icing colours.
I used the Wilton Barbie Cake-pan and their half-barbie doll for the top of the cake. You’d think it’d be traumatizing for a child to eat a person’s dress, but if someone actually made their dress out of icing, I’d probably try to eat it too.
Baking the cake was a bit of an experience. The batter burst through the top of the cake, resulting in an uneven bottom. I levelled the bottom off and hoped the Barbie didn’t look too short. I ate the levelled pieces only to see if the cake tasted okay, I promise.
After an hour or so, I iced the cake with the pink icing, but I found the crumbs really liked getting caught in the icing. So I tossed the cake in the fridge for a few hours to make a crumb coat. While the cake was cooling off, I decorated the Barbie on a Styrofoam cup. I tried icing the Barbie flat, but the icing wouldn’t stick. So I used tip 14 to keep the icing in place and went with my gut for design. I didn’t add the ruffles until after I placed it on the cake.
I eventually took the cake out of the fridge and attempted another coat of icing. While the crumbs didn’t disappear completely, it certainly helped to lessen the amount of them and to cover up areas where the cake showed through. I placed the Barbie on the cake and added the ruffle with tip 101. I stayed with tip 14 for the waves underneath the ruffle.
I decorated the base dress with the “lace” design. I kept the colour pink to make the cake look textured instead of making it look busy with a purple. I used tip 3 because I wasn’t comfortable with tip one or two. I didn’t use any piping gel, but I do now when making lace. I prefer the lace to other designs on the Barbie cakes because I think it looks classy while still helping to cover up any crumbs that are determined to stay on the cake, but my mom says the lace looks too old fashioned. Oh well.
I used the ruffle on the bottom of the cake with tip 406. I didn’t have a giant coupler, and it also ate up a lot of icing. I generally use tip 104 for the bottom of the cake now so that it doesn’t take up so much icing. I used tip 21 for the waves underneath the ruffle. According to my video, it took about 43 minutes and 30 seconds to do the dress, including the addition of the flowers.
Here is the sped-up version of me decorating the base of the cake.
Pardon the constant jumpiness of the zoom. I cut up the video to remove the parts where I went to wash my hands or get more icing, and I must have moved the camera as well.
For the flowers, I decided then how to place them. I’m pretty big on things being symmetrical and balanced, so I put them in four groups of three along the bottom, and four sets of one flowers along the top. I put two flowers in the hair to hide the elastic band, and I put two flowers on her shoulders because the arms on the doll are a strange colour. I used Royal Icing to stick them to the cake and the Barbie, though when I make other Barbie cakes I usually use Royal Icing when putting the flowers on the doll and Buttercream Icing when putting them on the cake.
Again, I didn’t keep track of how long this cake took. I made and decorated the cake all in one day, except for the flowers. I estimate it took around 7 hours total, although some of that time may have been waiting for the cake to bake and cool, and I probably took breaks to stretch my legs and eat non-cake things.
Here’s the cake I made for my brother’s birthday back in May.
It’s a Question Mark Block with a 1-Up Mushroom!
1-Up because it’s his birthday.
Well, I thought it was clever.
So this cake was a bit more complicated. I printed off a picture of the Mario Mushroom, put the picture under wax paper, and then traced it with the black Royal Icing. I used Colour Flow Icing to fill it in. Because it takes so long to dry, I did it a few days in advance. I ignored the little white eye-dots inside the mushroom because I didn’t think I could pull it off.
It was my first time using colour flow, as you can see by how sloppy it is. Sorry sibling. I tried to put the colour flow on a few different ways, from simply spooning it in to using a parchment bag with a tip to guide it in. Either way, I spread it out with a paintbrush. Nowadays, I generally just spoon it in and spread it around and pray.
I didn’t make a spike or anything to keep the mushroom in the cake, which is why the mushroom fell off the cake while we were in Boston Pizza. I suggest adding a large spike to the piece with Royal and Colour Flow icing to help keep the piece in the cake. We had the mushroom leaning against candles and toothpicks.
To make the base, I used four 9 inch square pans that I usually use for brownies. They’re 2 inches deep, which is why I used four of them to make a square. I made two French Vanilla cakes and two Chocolate cakes because some people are picky. Once they cooled down, I stacked them with chocolate icing between them.
They look like a pillow because I didn’t think about leveling off the cakes. If I made this cake again, I would level off each layer to make sure the cake was even. It would also mean there would be less cracks to fill in with icing like I ended up doing.
I tried to make the colours look more like the original NES blocks because I’m amazing like that. I used Golden Yellow icing colour for the yellow icing and a mix of orange, copper, and brown colouring for the orange icing. As usual, I used Wilton Ready-Made Black Icing. It took about 3 tubes of black icing to make this sucker (maybe 4? I’ve forgotten). I used 3 cups of icing for the other two colours, obviously with more orange, but I didn’t measure how much. It was probably around a cup of yellow and two cups of orange.
I used my handy 21 tips with the icing. I only iced the top of the cake and neglected the sides. I decorated in black first to make a base. Then I worked on the orange in the question marks (two sides had the question mark, two sides had the brick), and then I filled the Question-mark side in with yellow. I coloured in the bricks and the top of the cake with orange last, and I constantly hoped that I didn’t run out of icing.
I have no estimate as to how long this took. I think I made the cakes the same day. I remember finishing the cake in the evening which means I took a while working, but I also left the cake at one point to pick up more black icing and I likely took a break to wander around the store. So if I shopped for an hour and ate for an hour, it would have taken around 5 hours to decorate.
I thought I’d start off with the cake I’m using as my background.The Death Star Cake
I made the cake for two friends of mine, probably in January or February. One was talking about her wedding and how it would be Star Wars themed. She said that the cake would obviously be the Death Star. So while she’s not getting married, I thought I’d try my hand at a Death Star Cake.
To make the shape, I baked in a cake pan that’s meant for Sports Balls. Basically, the pans are two halves that you stick together afterwards. A few toothpicks of black colouring made the gray icing, and I used Wilton’s Ready-Made Icing for the black because my black icing tastes like absolute rubbish. Theirs tastes fantastic. It’s super creamy and has a bit of a black licorice flavour. I’m pretty sure they used witchcraft to make it taste so great. It’s why our teeth turn black afterwards. We’re eating pure evil. Obviously evil would taste good.
Since I made this a while ago, I’m not 100% positive on what tips I used. I’m pretty sure I used Tip 21 with the gray and Tip 18 for the Black, but it might be Tip 18 for the gray and Tip 16 for the black. Either way, I know the black is a tip smaller than the gray. I definitely didn’t plan for the design. I just opened a picture of the Death Star and went along with it. If I made this cake again in the future, I’d probably make it as small as possible so that I could put more detail into the “Superlaser Focus Lens” and make the trenches more defined. And I’d probably get a better image in my head as to what I wanted it to look like.
I used one of those stands that can spin around so that I didn’t have to worry about the cake rolling around when I moved the base. Also, it allowed the Death Star to rotate like planet, although I don’t know if the Death Star actually does this. Apparently I am a lousy fan. I didn’t ice the cake first because I didn’t know where to start and worried about breaking the cake. So I decorated a bit of the bottom first so it would stick to the base and then I dove right in and put the top piece on. I put the gray icing between the two pieces and maybe filled in a few holes with it. I generally did the black pieces first and then filled in with the gray.
Again, I can’t recall how long I spent on this. I know I gave it to them the same day in the evening. Considering what time I get up in the afternoon morning, it probably took me 3-4 hours to decorate.
One of my cousins decided to come over for a visit, and I decided to make a cake so that I would be showered with compliments during his visit. Again, my round cake pan saved the day by offering a solution to what sort of cake to make. Because there would likely be non-Pokémon trainers eating the cake with us, I chose the easily recognizable, regular Pokéball over something more stylish, like the Dive Ball.
