With Kelly Delaney
This cake is perfect for a first birthday party. In this one cake, which is made to look like a large cupcake, Kelly Delaney of Cakes for Occasions shows you many of the basic cake decorating techniques you will use over and over again. It also has two tiers and enough butter cream frosting to satisfy even the most avid sweet tooth.There are several techniques demonstrated here that you will be able to use in many cake decorating situations. The first is the process of cutting a center out of a cake and putting in a cream filling. Although the filling is not seen from the outside it provides a pleasant surprise when the cake is cut. Another technique is leveling a cake by cutting off the top before covering it with frosting.
Skim coating a cake before frosting it is a good idea. To skim coat, apply a little frosting and spread around to cover cake with a thin layer of frosting. Tip: You skim coat the cake so that cake crumbs do not pull up when you got to frost your cake and since we will be applying colored frosting to the cake, the colors will not bleed through. You can skim coat your cake a day ahead of when you are frosting your cake and leave it in the fridge.
Since this is a two-tiered cake the second tier needs to be supported, otherwise it would crush the bottom layer. In order to avoid this, you use wooden dowels, which can be obtained in most hardware stores. Tip: You want your dowel the thickness of a pencil.
Kelly shows how to measure the first dowel in the center of the bottom cake, and then cut three more dowels of equal length to support the top cake layer. One tip is to soak the dowels before cutting so that they will cut easier.
Another technique is creating a border for both the bottom and top tiers of the cake. Tip: When decorating with multiple colors, use your light colors first and then finish with your darker colors for impact.
