How to Make a Celebration Cake
Learn how to create a showstopping celebration cake with the help of our step-by-step guide.
Perfect as a gift, or simply to make for yourself and your loved ones, decorate your cake with coloured frosting and bring your creation to life with accent shapes made from modelling paste.
You can even personalise your cake by mixing and matching colours, or adding in extra personal touches such as messages.
Project and instructions by Lucy Bruns
You will need
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Is $ 4.49
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Is $ 6.49
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Is $ 7.49
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Is $ 5.49
How to make
* 3 x 6” diameter sponges
* 3 x 8” diameter sponges
* Piping Tips – Large Round Nozzle, Star Nozzles and a Small Writing Nozzle
* Artist’s Palette Knife
* A 6” Round Cake Card
* A 12” Round Cake Drum
* Betty Crocker Vanilla Frosting x 4
* A Cake Scraper and Cake Turntable
* Piping Bags
* Renshaw Flower & Modelling Paste
* A Star Cutter
* Edible Glue
* Rainbow Dust Gold Edible Lustre
* Sprinkles
* A Cooling Rack or Wire Rack
* A Serrated Knife
* 5 Food Colours
* Small Brushes
* Cake Dowels
* Gold Icing Stars
Bake your sponges and cool on a wire rack.
Cut off any domed tops with a long, serrated knife so each sponge is flat and level.
Stick the first 6” cake on the cake card with a blob of frosting. Pipe a dam of frosting around the edge and add a layer of jam inside the dam.
Add the next sponge on top and repeat with the filling.
Lastly, invert the third sponge so that the base is now on top.
Put the stacked cake in the fridge to chill. Repeat this process with the 8” sponges on the 12” cake drum.
Decant 1 tub of frosting into a bowl and stir in a few drops of teal food colouring.
Top Tip: The frosting will continue to strengthen in colour over time, so stop adding food colouring once you get a few shades lighter than you would like the end result to be.
Put one cake on a turntable and use a palette knife to cover it all over with the teal frosting. Use a cake scraper to smooth the frosting and return to the fridge to firm up.
Repeat with the second cake.
Whilst the cakes are chilling, you can cut out your accent shapes from modelling paste.
Top Tip: We used a small star cutter but you could do hearts for a Valentine theme, snowflakes for a winter theme, flowers for Mother’s Day, etc.
Roll out the modelling paste 3mm thick and cut out your desired shapes. Use a small brush to paint a thin layer of edible glue onto the icing shapes and coat with edible lustre dust or glitter.
Once you have left your cakes in the fridge for an hour to set, it’s time to stack the cakes ready for decorating.
Use cake dowels in the base cake to support the weight of the top tier.
Put the remainder of the teal frosting into a piping bag fitted with a small writing nozzle, and pipe around the base of the top tier to hide the join.
Use a cake scraper to smooth the frosting and blend away the join.
Please note this is a super adaptable and very forgiving method of decorating a cake - it covers a multitude of sins so don’t worry too much if your cake is not perfectly smooth!
Use an artists palette knife to apply the first colour – smear blobs of frosting randomly around the sides and top of the cake.
Add a few sprinkles to the smears before the frosting sets.
Take your next colour of frosting and add it to a piping bag fitted with your nozzle of choice and pipe on swirls, stars or S-shapes – whatever takes your fancy!
Repeat with each bag of frosting, building up the colour and texture all over the cake until you are happy with the coverage or you run out of frosting.
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