"Hush Little Baby" Crib Cake

Materials:

Cookie sheets or cake cardboards
Tape
Waxed Paper
2 cups Royal Icing
Blue, Green, Red and Yellow coloring pastes/gels
Parchment or pastry bags
Piping Tips- #2,#3,#12,#86
Art Brush
10” Square Cake Layer
Quarter Sheet Cake Drum
Black Food-coloring Marker
Matching Ribbon
Glue Stick


Instructions:


1. Make several copies of each animal-shaped pattern and the letters from patterns below. Attach them to a firm, smooth surface that can be set aside. Cover the patterns with waxed paper and tape them into place. Remove 1/3 of prepared royal icing and set aside. Divide the remainder into 5 portions and tint with light blue, dark blue, green, red and yellow. Load a small handful of icing into a small piping bag fit with tip #3, then pipe the outline of each figure, being careful not to leave any gaps in the outline. Use a damp brush to help correct mistake and join line together.

2. Add drops of water, one at a time to the remaining colored icing until a ribbon of icing melts into the icing below it in 10 seconds. *Use tip #2 to flood each outline, building it up until the icing has a puffy, raised appearance. Allow the decorations to dry at least 24 hours. Repeat the process with the crib rail panels using the white icing.

3. Cut the cake in half, creating two rectangular 5 x 10” layers. Fill and stack on a cake drum, using a dab of buttercream icing to secure. Cover the cake with buttercream icing. Carefully remove the dried floodwork from the waxed paper with a thin, flexible spatula. ( Or you can pull the paper to the edge of a table or countertop; then pull the paper slowly over the edge, catching the piece as it comes from with your other hand.) Attach the bed rails to the cake, positioning them 1” above the surface cake drum.

4. Pipe green and red stripes across the front of the cake using tip #12, ending the bottom of stripe 1” above surface of cake drum. Alternate the colors randomly, piping 1-3 stripes of the same color before switching.


5. Pipe a red bead border around the base of the cake using tip #12.


6. Using tip #86, pipe a green ruffle around the entire cake just above the bead border, splitting the distance between the bead border and the bottom edge fo the rails/stripes. While piping, wiggle the tip in a very tight zigzag motion to achieve the ruffled appearance.

7. Pipe another green ruffle across the top of the stripes at the top edge of the bed’s front side.

8. With tip #86, pipe a second ruffle around the base of the cake in red. Expose just a little of the green ruffle below, keeping the top edge against the base of the bed rails and stripes. Add facial details to the animals using a black food-colouring marker. Arrange animals and letters on the bed and around the base, using buttercream to prop them up. Finish the cake drum by attaching pretty matching ribbon using a glue stick.

* Handy Tip from Mame... Begin piping the figure with two colors first. Pipe and flood the smaller portions, allowing the icing to crust. Then finish with the second color. I flooded the backside of the dry, completed figures to provide a more finished, 3-D appearance. You may choose to finish the pieces with only one layer.

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PATTERNS

Tutorial by Mame Recckio-Wolfe
2009. all rights reserved
Photography by Katie Hilbert
2009. all rights reserved
This material may not be republished or reproduced in any manner without the expressed permission of the author.
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You can find wonderful tutorials just like this one in every issue of American Cake Decorating Magazine. Order your subscription today!!

How to make lemon sponge petit fours

Petit fours are tiny cakes and pastries. The name is french and means "tiny oven". The look and taste of a petit four varies greatly from country to country. In my country, Denmark, petit fours are usually small piped cakes made from a mixture of almond paste and eggwhite, that are baked and decorated with candied fruit, chocolate, jam or nuts. But most other recipes of petit fours I have seen, are made from cake and icing. The kind I will show here are made from an egg yolk sponge. The recipe produces a moist, dense sponge that is flexible, easy to handle and not too sweet. This caters to European tastebuds. You can use any recipe you like, if you want an American style petit four instead. Just bake your favorite yellow or white cake in 1" layers. Split the layer in two and sandwich with filling. Proceed as shown.

Start by making the cake. This recipe is from the Lambeth Method of Cake Decorating and Practical Pastries, by Joseph Lambeth. I added lemon zest. For a non-lemony cake, leave it out.

Dobois sponge
recipe makes one 16"x16" layer (40x40 cm)

4 large eggyolks (80 grams)
1 large egg
3½ Tbsp sugar (42 grams)
25 grams almond paste
1 tsp lemon zest

3 large eggwhites (115 grams)
2 Tbsp sugar (25 grams)

3/4 cup flour (70 grams)

Preheat the oven to 400F (200C) and put a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet or in a rectangle pan.

Mix almond paste and the egg to a paste. Add yolks, lemon zest and sugar. Beat until light and fluffy.
In another bowl, whisk eggwhites and sugar to a glossy meringue. Fold into eggyolk mixture.
Sift flour and fold into the eggs. Be careful not to overmix the dough as it will flatten. Since there is no baking powder or baking soda in this cake, the air incorporated into the eggs is the only leavening agent there is.



Spread the batter into the baking sheet. It should be fairly thin, about 1/8" (0.5 cm). Bake for apprx 6 minutes until golden. Keep an eye on it so the edges won't burn. Transfer to cooling rack and cover with a clean kitchen towel. Let cool completely.



When the cake is cool, turn the cake upside down on a fresh piece of parchment paper and peel the paper off the back. Be careful or it will tear.



Trim the cake and cut 4 squares, equal in size.



Spread a thin layer of lemon curd on 3 of the squares. Position on top of each other, placing the layer without lemon curd on top.
And now! Don't do what I did. I cut the pieces immediatly because I was in a hurry, which caused not-so-clean cuts. What you should do is to cover the cake and refrigerate or even better, freeze, for a few hours, preferably overnight. Then you can cut into squares about 1.5x1.5" (4x4 cm).

Place the squares on a cooling rack while you mix the poured fondant. Put a baking sheet with parchment paper under to catch the fondant drippings.



Poured fondant
2 cups powdered sugar (275 grams)
2 Tbsp corn syrup or glucose
1/4 cup half water and half lemon juice (0.5 dl)
Yellow food coloring

For non-lemony cake, use all water.
Mix in a small saucepan and heat very gently on the lowest setting of your stove. The fondant should never be hot, but just slightly warm. Stir gently. Pour over the cakes, making sure every corner and side is covered. The drippings are scraped back in the saucepan, reheated and poured again until every cake is covered. If your cakes are nice and cold you should have no crumbs in the fondant. Otherwise you have to sieve it.
And this is where my laziness shows - the poured fondant reveals every single flaw I made when I cut unrefridgerated cake. Don't be like me!

The red spots demonstrates a common flaw - a naked corner. Pour more fondant over until completely covered and make sure to check every cake from all sides.

Let the fondant set a few hours and then decorate as desired. Here I used royal icing, but buttercream can be used as well as fruit, nuts and chocolate.





Tutorial and Photos by Sif Jensen. 2009 All rights reserved.
This material may not be republished or reproduced in any manner without the expressed permission of the author.

Creating a Floral Wedding Cake with a Flair

This is a cake I did recently for a wedding with a Tuscan theme. The grandmother and the bride made all of the flower arrangements and the backdrop of the cake. The cake sat on glass blocks that had gorgeous fabrics flowing through it. The cake was fairly simple. It had a grape impressed fondant border that was dusted with Frosted Lemon by ECG that is one of my favorites. A cascade of gum paste roses, calla lilies, grapes, 5 petal blossoms, grapes and fall leaves tumbled down the side. Flickering candles were placed on the corners of each cake and glowed so pretty. They were LCD lights.

I started by placing the candles on the cake. I attached them with a little bit of piping gel and fondant. Next I placed the grapes to cascade downward. I moved them several times to get the placement that pleased me.

Next I added the roses. I started with the smaller roses at the top and moved down the tiers with the larger roses. The roses are on long toothpicks so they are easy to anchor in the fondant. Move them if necessary. Do not line them up. Tilt the roses in different directions to give them a natural look. The more "relaxed" they look the more natural they will appear. Do not be afraid to pull them out and readjust even after the florals are complete. Be gentle with them but adjust if you feel it will give the arrangement a more pleasing look. Tuck the roses around the grapes and then add the calla lilies. Again, tilt at different angles to fit the arrangement.

Tuck in filler flowers in random spots on the edges and in between the flowers. Make plenty of filler flowers so that the arrangement has a balanced look.

The twigs are "fillers" too. Tuck them in at the edges and the ends of flowers to extend the arrangement. Tuck them in the middle of the flowers randomly. Bend to suit the situation.

Step back and look at your cascade from all sides. Does it please the eye? Does it flow? Move the flowers as needed. Several of the flowers in this arrangement were moved to suit the cake.

Tuck in the leaves on the ends and edges. Have them going in different directions so they flow.Tuck in between flowers, making sure they don't cover the flowers.

Add a few to the top of the cake and attach with buttercream or piping gel.

I hope this helps you in some way. Practice makes perfect. Get silk flowers and practice on cake dummies so you can feel confident when you are ready to place gumpaste flowers on a real cake.
Happy Decorating!

Photos and Tutorial by Denise Talbot. all rights reserved. 2009

This material may not be republished or reproduced in any manner without the expressed permission of the author.