I had made their wedding cake when they got married in November several years ago, it was a gorgeous winter wedding, the cake was all white with this beautiful shimmering dust that I put on to look like icicles. Ever since then I had wanted to expand on the idea of winter cakes. Since his birthday is January, definitely winter time, it was my perfect opportunity. I went to Pinterest for a little extra inspiration!
This is pinned to my board "Inspiration"
I had seen another cake a few months ago, that I didn't pin, but thought was beautiful, it was a dark blue fondont and had shimmering pearls all over it. The thing I liked about the cake above was the dimensional snowflakes on the bottom left cake. So with those two ideas in my head I got to work!
On the day before their birthdays, I made the decorations out of "Royal Egg White Frosting" out of one of my old "Wilton Cake Decorating" books. Use 3 egg whites (room temp), 4 cups powdered sugar and 1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar. Beat it on high for 7-10 minutes. It is a nice consistency to work with but will dry hard within 24 hours. I used a small round frosting tip and got creative! My biggest concern was to be able to pick up and decorate with the snowflakes once they were dry. If I made them too fragile they would shatter before I even got them to the cake, so, knowing me and knowing my luck, just for "backup purposes" you understand, I made more than double the amount that I thought I would use.
You might notice the yellow blob in the top right corner, well that was my attempt at seeing if the rubber ducky would be better as a royal icing ducky rather that a gum paste ducky. Not so much! Didn't look anything like a duck, so that idea was ditched almost immediately!
Oh and have to give you another little tidbit that goes into the "mishap" category. I got the decorations made and started working on making their birthday presents (more on those in a later post), after all, I only had one day left before they had to be finished. Started working on them and the power went out for 3 hours. I got shut down for the night!!
So now, It's the big day and since I had lost a few hours the night before, I got up extra early and got started! The cakes were baking in the oven by 8am! I used 3 layers of 8 inch round cakes. Chad's favorite cake is white cake with white frosting. I used a regular cake mix for the cake but made homemade buttercream frosting. It's SO much better than the storebought!! I used blue food coloring and got to work!! You have to do a "crumb coat" It's just a thin layer of frosting, then I put my cake in the freezer for a few minutes to set the frosting. That way you don't have crumbs showing on the final frosting of the cake.
If you notice the glass of water and knife, I have a little trick I use to get all the lumps and bumps out of the frosting. You could also use the special spatula's you can buy for decorating a cake, but I find a simple butter knife works just fine. Just dip your knife in warm water and smooth over the cake. Perfect!!
Once it's all smooth, I added a simple border with a flower tip and added the snowflakes! Remember I told you about the sparkles that I used on their wedding cake, I also added those and found some Christmas cookie decorations that were tiny snowflakes, so added a few of those also.
Also, remember, I told you that I had made "extras" of the snowflakes, just in case? Well.........
It was a VERY good idea!!!
The royal icing recipe made LOTS, so I had more than 1/2 still left even after all the decorations. I didn't want to throw it out, so..........
I made the kids little candies they can enjoy on our next "Nana Day"!
Happy Birthday Chad! I'm so very proud of the Husband, the Father, the Man you have become. Love you and pray that the best for you is still yet to come!!
