cake tutorial

Mini Tutorial: White on White Baroque Cake

May 7, 2020 By Ashley 2 Comments

[This post is written in partnership with Iron Orchid Designs. All text and opinions are 100% mine. Please note that I would never endorse a product or company that I don’t actually enjoy using. Thank you for supporting brands that help me and my business grow!]

Hi guys! I’m super excited to share my white on white Baroque cake mini tutorial with you. Since monochrome cakes are one solid color, it can be hard to emphasize detail and textures, since those elements can get lost in the overall look of the cake. So, I’m going to share some ways to make a single color cake really pop. One of the best ways is to add textural elements using moulds, stamps, or other 2D elements.

The moulds I used for this cake are by Iron Orchid Designs. They’re large, durable, made with high quality food-safe silicone and are super easy to use. The fondant doesn’t stick to the moulds, and is easy to remove. The moulds also have a micro rim to help get a super clean edge. The two that I chose to use are baroque style moulds (the Classic Elements and Acanthus moulds) with lots of scrolls and embellishments with some pearl detail.

For the cake, I used a natural white fondant (slightly ivory tinted) and used an Iron Orchid decor stamp, called Craquelure. I love this stamp. It’s perfect for creating a fishnet texture, a lacy texture and great for animal skins, like snakes and reptiles. I imprinted all of my cake tiers with this stamp to add additional texture under the moulded pieces.

The best way to plan out the mould design for your cake is, as you are making pieces, lay them out on a non-stick mat to form the big components of your design before putting them on your cake. To use these moulds, press the fondant firmly into the mould. You can use a solid piece of fondant, or you can place the fondant into the mould in pieces. Note that the finished mould piece will be a bit segmented since the fondant was placed in pieces. I tend to like that look because it reminds me of old stone pieces, so a lot of my moulded pieces have some random segmented lines.

Once the fondant is in the mould, use a modeling tool to scrape off the excess paste. To remove the fondant, place the mould face down. Gently peel back the mould and ease the fondant out. It should come out easily and all in one piece.

I formed the larger pieces of my design to get a basic design and layout, then placed them onto the cake with sugar glue. Then I filled in the design with smaller accent pieces, followed by the pearl details. The pearl detail on the bottom tier is my absolute fave. It’s probably my favorite tier.

I also added a few white dragees to accent the design and fill in some blank spaces. I made some white heirloom roses with lots of petals and added those to the cake for more of a romantic touch. I left the petals all white and dusted the edges with just a little bit of cream colored petal dust.

Moulds and stamps are a great way to add textural elements and additional detail to help this white on white cake really stand out. If you recreate this cake, let me know. Tag me on Instagram so I can see it and share it!

For more mini tutorials, check these out:

Mediterranean Tile and Flowers Cake

Romantic Roses Cake

Gum Paste Ladybug Tutorial

March 30, 2020 By Ashley Leave a Comment

These gum paste ladybugs are super easy and fast to make, and they are a super cute addition to any spring time garden or woodland style cake. I like to pair them with other insects, like butterflies or bees, and they look amazing in sugar flower arrangements. You can tape them in with flower petals so they sit in a flower, or you could tape them on to branches and vines, like I did for this cake.

Supplies:

white gum paste, 26 gauge floral wire, small jewelry pliers, sugar glue, cornstarch, vegetable shortening, ladybug body mold (Optional, but I got mine here), edible paints in red, black and white, foam for drying, paintbrushes, dresden tool, confectioner’s glaze

Step 1: Make a small circular hook at the end of a piece of 26-gauge wire with jewelry pliers. Bend the hook down so that it lays flat against the wire. Grip the top half of the circle hook and bend down so that the circle is perpendicular to the stem.

Step 2: Condition a small ball of white gum paste with just a little bit of vegetable shortening until the paste is no longer sticky. If you are using the ladybug mold, press the gum paste into the mold, firmly, to make sure that the paste completely fills the mold. Remove excess paste.

*Step 2: Alternative Method: If you are not using a mold, roll a piece of gum paste into a small ball, depending on the size you would like your ladybug. Flatten the ball slightly, and taper one end to create a blunted point. Use the thin side of a dresden tool to draw a line to separate the head from the body. Draw a line down the center of the body to create two segments.

Step 3: Brush the wire with sugar glue and insert the wire into the ladybug in the mold. Let dry for a minute or two. This will allow it to be a little bit more stable before removing the ladybug from the mold.

Step 4: Gently peel the mold away from the ladybug to remove it from the mold. Place the wired ladybug in a some foam to dry completely.

Step 5: Paint the body with edible red paint. Paint the underside of the body as well.

Step 6: Paint the head with edible black paint. Paint the underside of head as well.

Step 7: Paint small, evenly spaced black dots on the body of the ladybug. Let the paint dry completely.

Step 8: Paint two white dots on the front of the head and two white dots on the body near the head. These dots will be larger than the black ones. Let dry completely.

Step 9: Dip the ladybug in confectioners glaze to give the ladybug a shiny coating. Avoid brushing the glaze as this will smear the paint. You can skip this step if you want your ladybugs to be matte.

To see the cake that I used these ladybugs for, check out my Woodland cake tutorial here.

Mini Tutorial: Romantic Roses Cake

January 29, 2020 By Ashley Leave a Comment

[This post is written in partnership with Satin Ice. All text and opinions are 100% mine. Thank you for supporting brands that help me and my business grow!]

Valentine’s Day is the inspiration behind this “mini” tutorial for my Romantic Roses cake. This cake is sponsored by my sweet friends over at Satin Ice. Their new buttercream icing mix was perfect for palette knife buttercream painting. While this is actually a fondant covered cake, mixed media elements like buttercream and royal icing techniques – such as palette knife painting, detailed piping, buttercream flowers, etc. look amazing together and allows you to incorporate several different techniques.

I’m calling this a “mini” tutorial because I’m sharing how I made this cake, but it’s not a step by step detailed tutorial. The idea is to share how I created this cake, and to share a technique and some information for you to be able to replicate it on your cakes. A reader wrote to me recently asking for me to keep in mind beginner cake tutorials when creating tutorials. I will most definitely be creating tutorials for ALL skill levels and ALL sorts of cakes – birthday cakes, wedding cakes, themed cakes, holiday cakes, etc. Keep in mind that many of the techniques featured in my full or mini tutorials can be applied to any size or style of cake, and many are perfect for all skill levels. Trust me, I’m going to do my best to not let any of you leave a post empty handed.

After determining that palette knife buttercream painting was definitely on the table for this cake, and Valentine’s Day was an underlying theme, my mind went to color next. I wanted to incorporate dark reds, pinks, and blush tones. And what screams Valentine’s Day more than ROSES? To keep with rose theme, I created hybrid tea roses, heirloom roses, David Austin garden roses, and little climbing roses and rose buds. I also added in some rose leaves and some twisty vines.

I used Satin Ice fondant for this cake, which I colored with Crystal Colors petal dust in Champagne and Blush, mostly equal parts. I wanted a blush color for the cake but I wanted it more of a cool, muted, vintage-y tone and not so harshly pink. I’ve been experimenting with using dusts for coloring fondant simply to get more of a targeted color. I find that it’s a bit more difficult to achieve the desired color if I’m using gel colors. Food safe dusts come in such a large variety of colors which allows me to achieve the color I’m aiming for much easier. However, if you don’t have these colors, you can use Americolor electric pink and Wilton brown to achieve a similar color. Avoid Americolor brown – there’s a bit too much orange in it. Incorporate very little color gradually since gels are more concentrated.

I used the same petal dusts to color my buttercream to match the fondant, which was fairly simple to do since the buttercream mix is pure white. Satin Ice buttercream mix comes as a soft dough. To the dough, you add butter or shortening and water to create an American style buttercream. The buttercream mix is very customizable to most projects. It’s stiff enough for piping flowers and ruffles, but you can also make it soft enough to mimic the same consistency as a meringue based buttercream, which happens to be my favorite buttercream to use. To get that consistency, I added water 1/2 teaspoon at a time until it was soft and smooth, like peanut butter.

Because I wanted my palette knife painting to be focused around the sugar flowers, I placed the sugar flowers first. Once the flowers were placed, I created buttercream “petals” around the flowers, by pressing the buttercream coated palette knife up against the cake and gently pulling down and away, to create a slightly grooved petal. Take care not to place your petals too symmetrical. The petals can be different sizes and don’t have to be perfectly neat. Consider creating your petals based on the shape you want your petals to have and direction you want your painting to go. Once I finished the painting, I added some white sugar dragees that I painted gold with a mix of clear alcohol and gold dust.

And really, that’s it. A super simple technique just to get acquainted with palette knife buttercream painting. I’m totally in love with the technique and can’t wait to do some palette knife buttercream flowers. Let me know if you try this out!

Check out these posts for more sugar art tutorials:

Gum Paste Blackberries, Leaves and Blossoms tutorial

Essential Tools for Making Sugar Flowers

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