Once upon a time in February, I made a cake for a very sweet, four-year old girl named Ramona. Ramona had a very specific idea of what she wanted for her cake. She wanted it to be heart-shaped. She wanted it to be decorated with purple, red, and pink with hearts and flowers. And she wanted the cake itself to be pink.
Super cute, right?
So you can imagine my horror when I began to assemble it and realized I had forgotten to tint the cake batter! This was a really big cake: three, twelve-inch layers. That's a lot of cake, and there's really no fixing it. So I quickly started baking again - carefully adding lots of pink food coloring to the batter - and this is what I ended up with...
Pinkalicious!
To make the cake heart-shaped, I started with a 12" round. I assembled and chilled the layers (but didn't frost the top or sides). Chilling it makes it much easier to sculpt, rather than doing the layers separately and hoping they match up size-wise. I cut a heart shape out of parchment paper, laid it on the top of the cake, and used a tomato knife to saw off hunks (and then fine tune) until it was the right shape. Then I used my favorite tie-dye look to spackle purple frosting on the top, and then white, pink, and red on the sides to make a pretty, melded frosting design. I ringed the sides with dozens of pink, purple, and red hearts, and made a few simple white flowers for the top.
I'm only glad I realized my mistake before delivering it. Can you imagine the birthday girl's disappointment? Whew!
Tune in next time to find out how I put the extra layers to use...
Super cute, right?
So you can imagine my horror when I began to assemble it and realized I had forgotten to tint the cake batter! This was a really big cake: three, twelve-inch layers. That's a lot of cake, and there's really no fixing it. So I quickly started baking again - carefully adding lots of pink food coloring to the batter - and this is what I ended up with...
Pinkalicious!
To make the cake heart-shaped, I started with a 12" round. I assembled and chilled the layers (but didn't frost the top or sides). Chilling it makes it much easier to sculpt, rather than doing the layers separately and hoping they match up size-wise. I cut a heart shape out of parchment paper, laid it on the top of the cake, and used a tomato knife to saw off hunks (and then fine tune) until it was the right shape. Then I used my favorite tie-dye look to spackle purple frosting on the top, and then white, pink, and red on the sides to make a pretty, melded frosting design. I ringed the sides with dozens of pink, purple, and red hearts, and made a few simple white flowers for the top.
I'm only glad I realized my mistake before delivering it. Can you imagine the birthday girl's disappointment? Whew!
Tune in next time to find out how I put the extra layers to use...
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