Birthday Gift Cake

A few weeks ago we had a birthday party for my mother-in-law. We managed to invite all her friends to her house and get a bunch of food together. All without her knowing about it. To celebrate the occasion I also made my second-ever fondant cake.

I knew from the start I wanted it to look like a couple of gifts stacked on top of each other. One large one on the bottom, which I figured I could make with sheet cakes. And a smaller square one stacked on top that would be made from a sheet cake sliced in quarters and layered.

For the main cake I used 2 layers of sheet cake. Covering them in pink fondant. You'll see in this picture that I didn't cover the entire cake with one piece.

I knew I was going to have a ribbon on this cake so to avoid wrestling with the gigantic piece of fondant I would need to cover the entire thing, I cut a straight edge on a piece large enough to cover the majority of the cake (placing the edge where I knew I'd have the ribbon). Then covered the rest with a smaller piece. Probably not the most professional technique, but much more manageable this way!

The resulting seem will be covered by the ribbon.

The cake is a pretty simple design, not much decorating so the most rewarding part was making the bows. And I was really happy with how they came out.

This is the first one almost finished- yellow with gold metallic edible powder to add sparkle. I made each loop separately, let them dry overnight, then used frosting to piece them together on the cake.

The second cake had an unfortunate accident. It broke into about a million pieces coming out of the pan. At this point I thought I'd have to go with just the one layer but figured I give covering it a try.

2 pieced together layers and lots of delicate frosting later I was ready to cover it. I thought being such a small cake the fondant would help to hold it together, and it certainly helped to firm it up. It wasn't the squarest or most even thing I've seen but it did the job.

I think it turned out pretty cute considering where it started! And I loved how the white bow looked on top.

I also make a gift tag out of the fondant. Once it was dry I wrote on it with a food coloring marker and placed it on the cake.

To survive the 45 minute drive, I waited until we were at the party to "officially" stack the cakes, but here's what it looked like when I "test stacked" them at home.

Surprisingly, making the bows turned out to be the easiest part. I think this would be a perfect beginners cake, not just because I'm a beginner and was able to make it, but because there isn't a lot of structure to worry about when stacking the tiers. And other than the bows, there's not much to the decorating- but it still has a lot of impact at a party.