Maddie's Fashion Birthday Cake

I have a sweet friend...her name is Summer. She is a little ray of sunshine like her name! :) - and she's my cake buddy. We've only made cakes together a couple of times, but we spend LOTS of time sharing ideas, tips, techniques, dreams and future plans together. She is SO incredibly smart in all things baking and writes the "Bakeology" articles for Cake Central magazine!! Her user name on Cake Central is Summerki...so you can see her work! She's got some serious talent! :) If you haven't checked her articles out, you should...you'll see how smart she is - and you'll learn something new I promise!! :)

Summer's daughter, Maddie, turned 7 today and we had talked a while back about trading cakes for our kid's birthdays. This way, instead of spending sleepless nights working on a cake, we can just decorate for the party and make other yummy treats! - and actually enjoy the day! :) So, today we did! I made her daughter a birthday cake, and she's going to make one for my baby girl in October! It was SO fun!!Another thing about my sweet friend is that they throw THE BEST birthday parties!! They do costumes, decorate the entire house, make tons of treats, goody bags, set out the entire dessert table, etc etc etc!! - it's incredible!! Her family gets on board and helps sew things, decorate things, etc etc etc! - you get the idea...it's amazing! - Truly amazing! The theme for Maddie's party was "Maddie's Fashion Fairytale". The whole house was decorated like a run way fashion cat walk and called "Stone House of Fashion". There was a literal run way, mannequins dressed to the hilt, Paris icons, ribbon wrapped columns, paper topiaries and flag banners everywhere...it was beautiful! Summer's mother-in-law made all the girls their own little t-shirt dress to model on the catwalk. It was SUPER cute! Here's my girl with her "serious model face" taking a stroll! :) She was crack'n me up!!! It took her a bit to warm up to "modeling", but once she put her serious face on and got a few people saying, "Wow, she's good!" I couldn't get her to get off the cat walk! It was hilarious! :)
The other thing Summer designed was the cake. I take NO credit for this sweet cake except actually making it! :) So it was a team effort! She sent me a sketch and I drew it up in my Autocad program...here is the drawing.
I also created the template for the bottom tier using photo paper. That worked really well because it didn't stick! A new idea I had that I will be using again. Instead of card stock, use photo paper to make templates.


I ended up making that bow about 6 times! I was trying to make it like Planet Cake where it sits up instead of laying flat! I just could NOT get it to sit right and had to keep remaking it. Finally I gave up and just laid it flat. What I didn't realize would happen is the batting I was using to fluff up the bow ended up leaving tons of marks behind when I took the batting out of the bow. So, I ended up making a new one and taking it back to the party to replace the other one! Yes, I'm weird...WAY to driven to perfection!! Oh well...it DID look better! :) - and that's what counts! :) Here's the final version!


Now, onto techniques and how to's!! There were definitely a few learning experiences with this cake (isn't there always) because there were several new things I hadn't done before!

The first thing that was new for me was the quilting effect on the top tier. It's a common technique, but I just had never done it! :) I tried just using my 60/30 triangle from my drafting days but it didn't work because it was straight plastic and wouldn't curve to the cake. So, I went looking for my card stock to make a template and realized I was out! AH! - What to do!??? Then it hit me...photo paper! It has that nice glossy side that doesn't stick and it was the perfect height - 6"! So, I used that for both the quilting guide and the template for the bottom tier. I love how "bad" things that happen can turn out for good! God is so gracious!!
I also measured down on the angled part of the photo paper the width of each of my stripes and cut into the photo paper with an exacto knife. This way when I laid the paper up onto the cake and pressed on it slightly, that little cut in the photo paper left a tiny mark on the cake to guide me for the next line. It worked perfectly! I then used the Wilton quilting tool (seen here) to make the impressions along the photo paper. The black balls are little black edible sprinkle beads you can buy at Micheal's.

Onto the bottom tier:
I created a template again, using photo paper. Here's the template I used:
I then used the fettuccine cutter on my pasta maker to cut out strips of modeling chocolate so I had lots of little stripes exactly the same size. I measured around my cake half way (ended up being about 13") and cut out two pieces of wax paper 6"h x 13" w. I greased them up lightly with Crisco so my stripes would stick on it and began laying out my pattern. Once I was done, I used my template to cut out the design, then flipped the wax paper over onto my cake and peeled it off. That's my "trade secret" for doing horizontal type stripes. Use wax paper greased with crisco to hold it on until you get it up onto the cake...then peel off the wax paper! - don't tell anyone...that's my little secret! :) hehe :)


Now, the little black ropes gave me a bit of a head ache at first...until I had another brilliant idea...again, thank you Lord! :) I used an extruder gun for the black rope and tried twisting it and getting my loops up on the cake as I went. But I couldn't keep them all the same size!! So, after the third attempt, I sat back and stared at it until the idea hit me...use pins!
At the top of every loop, I stuck a pin in the cake. That way, when I looped around with the extruder gun, the fondant rested on the loop until I could come back and press it into the cake. And, that way, all the loops were the same height! Brilliant! - it worked SO good!! I was SUPER happy!

All in all I was really happy with the cake!! It fit in perfectly with the decor and was so yummy! The top tier was vanilla cake with raspberry SMBC. The bottom tier was red velvet with vanilla buttercream. I tried a new fondant (Pettinice/Bakels) It's what the Aussie's use! :) I really liked it! Reminded me a bit of marshmallow fondant, but easier to use. And, it's less expensive than Satin Ice. So, I'll be buying that one now if I need store bought stuff - which isn't very often! :)

OH, one other thing I forgot to mention is the pink fondant I used!! - HUGE new learning lesson! Pink gel colors fade!! I colored the fondant pink (see this first picture above with the pins in it), and by the time it got to the party and set out for a bit, it faded to a peachy-pink (see the pic below). It faded a good 3-4 shades of pink and what was left was much less pink and more fleshy in color...it was really weird!! Summer said she had that happen to her too and was shocked!! I guess if you don't want the pink to fade, you have to air brush it! - but I don't have an airbrush machine! So, if you know of another way to keep pink gel colored fondant from fading (besides working with it in the dark or keeping it in a box), write me a comment...I'd LOVE to know! - for future! :)


Thanks everyone for looking!! Sleep tight! :)