Why settle for a single-tier cake, when you can build it up to 3 levels. Cover it with buttercream, smooth the sides & sharpen the edges for a grand look.
Made this cake for my daughter's 9th birthday. My fourth attempt at decorating cake. I am a person who likes new challenges and gets excited about them. So I decided to crank up the difficulty level by making 3 tier cake instead of just one tier, make the sides and edges look crisp like professional cakes (which I hadn't attempted before) and yet keep it classy using only two colours (white and blue in this case). All this to achieve with the limited tools and ingredients I had.
It was time to get creative. Wanna know how I did it then keep reading...
Side View
I used my Chocolate cake - Vegan cake recipe for this cake. For the base tier, I used 3 times the recipe quantity, for the second tier I used 2 times the recipe quantity and for the top tier, I used 1 times the quantity. So altogether I used 6 times my chocolate cake recipe. Used three different sizes of round baking tin ( inch x 3 inches, 6 inches x 3 inches, and 4 inches x 3 inches). I will soon make a post on how to level the cake to make it sit flat on the cake board with clean lines.
Note: the baking time increases due to an increase in cake batter quantity while the baking tin remains the same. In this process, the cake does get a little dry. So, I moisten the cake by drizzling simple syrup over it and allowed it to sit for a few minutes till the syrup soaks in.
Each cake tier was prepared separately with its own cake board. For the 2nd and 3rd tier I used the same sized cake board as the cake size (i.e 6 inches and 4 inches) so that it does not poke out of buttercream when placed on top of the 1st and 2nd tier. For 1st tier cake, I used a large-sized cake board (i.e 10 inches) for easy handling and transfer.
I made a large batch of buttercream icing to cover each tier. I used an angled cake spatula to place and spread the buttercream evenly on each cake tier. Now to achieve smooth buttercream sides, 2 tools are of utmost importance, the first is the cake turntable and the second is the icing scraper. The funny part is that I didn't have any of these. So what do I do now...? That's when my creative mind came up with a "Jugaad". Any guesses, what I used in place of turntable and icing scraper?
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drumroll, please
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My dining table Lazy Susan and my kid's 30cm long and 2 inches wide acrylic ruler. It worked like a charm. However, now I do own the proper tools as I have made many more cakes since this and it is a good investment. In my forthcoming cake posts, you will see how I use these tools to smooth the sides and create sharp edges.
Top View
Each buttercream tiers were refrigerated for an hour to solidify and firm up the soft buttercream for easy handling and protection from any accidental dents.
For structural support and to prevent cake sinking, professionals use cake dowels in each tier. Well, I didn't have this either. So again I cobbled together wooden bbq skewers from my cupboard and used them in place of cake dowels and it certainly did the trick. I also used a long skewer (almost the height of a total of 3 tiers and pushed it in the center of the top tier all the way through to the last tier for extra support and to prevent the tiers from sliding. The skewer hole was then covered with buttercream for a clean finish.
Closeup view
As mentioned earlier, I was going for a white and blue themed cake. So to add the blue element, I used blue and white patterned wide satin ribbon (yes, you can use non-edible ribbons) on the 2nd tier along the bottom edge. This gave an instant pop of blue without spending hours on piping this precise and intricate design. I used buttercream on the ends of the ribbon to secure it to the cake.
No matter how careful we are, the bottom edge of cake tiers does show roughness. So to give a neat look I piped a thin line of buttercream along the bottom edge of each tier and carefully stuck edible silver cachous balls like a pearl chain.
Despite all this, the cake was looking plain and was missing that oomph. So to add that zest, I did few more additions. I sprayed edible blue colour on the top surface of the top tier to match the blue with the ribbon and placed some silver edible cachous balls along the periphery. I also stuck silver and metallic blue edible cachous balls along the sides of the 1st and 3rd tier to give that extra flair.
Cake Cutting
Placed a blue coloured number nine candle on the top of the cake and voila the cake was ready for the celebration. Doesn't it look beautiful? My daughter couldn't wait to cut it.
So you see, even without the fancy tools, one can put together a grand cake that is sure to bring the biggest smile to a birthday person's face. Make their day along with yours. Give this design a try and share your pics with qitchenery on Instagram.
Stay tuned and I will return with yet another cake decoration I created.
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