DIY Sequin Cake

That there is a lovely cake a friend ordered for her mother's 50th birthday. Lucky mom! The inside is the raspberry lemon upside down cake I posted last week. And the sequins? All hand made sprinkles!

If you are thinking that making your own sprinkles is insane and would take forever, it's not true! But, you can shop online and buy all white quins. But it's not cheap!

I cut out all those sprinkles in an hour. It's worth it to save yourself endless coats of gold paint! All my sprinkles are basic white fondant circles made using a round "plunger" I bought at the craft store. You can also use the end of a piping tip! They airbrush perfectly! I used Wilton's edible spray gold that I bought at a craft store! Surprisingly easy for such a great looking cake!

 Step One: Crumb Coat your cake! You can do a proper layer after. And you should. I didn't, but wished I had. Learn from my mistakes!

Step Two: You can stick the sprinkles straight into buttercream frosting without a problem! My frosting was the cream cheese frosting I use for old fashioned sugar cookies.

Step Three: Cover the whole cake with sprinkles! Just keep pressing them on!  I occassionally would use a knife to flatten down the sequins. Pro tip: If you want to stick any sequins on individually, corn syrup makes an AMAZING edible glue!

Step Four: Get spraying! I used Wilton edible spray gold! I bought a can at the craft store and it worked perfectly! Wilton makes many nearly ten colors! I've also used their pearly white and it's lovely!

Step Five: Fix any gaps. This is when I'd spin it around and glue on a couple sequins using corn syrup to fill in any gaps I see. Spray again, and repeat as necessary! 

Step Six: If you have a second layer you are using, stack em' up! My second layer is a dummy cake covered in marshmallow fondant. 

Step Seven: Move your cake to it's serving platter and adorn as you like! I added a small gumpaste rose, but for the party we'll throw a blinged out 50 up top! Easy peasy!

Want to pin just the pictures all in one go? Here they are! Good luck with your own sequin cakes!

Make That Cake: Gilded Lily

I have been absentee. I apologize. I took some time off of baking to lose 25 pounds. I'm getting married in a few months and... well... there are side effects of baking! Namely, effecting the size of my sides. Yeesh.  But I've come up with a compromise!

That cake is a dummy cake. It's a very nice 6x8 inch round piece of styrofoam. It takes the edge of my baking needs, but I'm not desperate enough to eat it. Talk to me after another 10 pounds and I might be singing a different tune!

Recently I made a friend's wedding cake. There was no reason whatsoever for her to pay $800 for a three tier cake when I could make it for $100. Baking skills can save you a lot of money. So can having a wedding cake that is mostly styrofoam. Her cake had two layers of styrofoam and one layer of real cake. She still cut her cake, it looked amazing, nobody knew the difference but it saved hours of baking, and a lot of supplies. Those layers of cake each cost $3. Consider it.

This is the first in a series I'm calling Make That Cake. This cake is a small one tier beauty. I'll be making cakes in all shapes and sizes and pieces of styrofoam. Again, I'm getting married people. I need to not be near cake for a while. 

This is probably the simplest of the cakes I'll be doing. It is elegant, simple, modern, and lovely. If you repeated this design over two or three or more tiers, you'd have an amazing wedding cake.

DISCLAIMER: This tutorial is about spray painting an edible golden stripe onto your cake. This DIY is starting with a fondant covered cake.Covering a cake with fondant is a tutorial all it's own. If you don't know how to cover a cake with fondant, then use this video to crumb coat your cake and then this Martha Stewart video will teach you to cover that cake with fondant. I'm also starting with a pre-made calla lily. That, again, is it's own tutorial (not to mention a big hassle to make. I highly recommend buying them).

Make That Cake: Gilded Lily

Supplies: 

• 1 fondant covered cake (the cake shown here is a 6 inch wide 8 inch tall round). 
• parchment paper, additional newspaper
• 1 gumpaste lily
• edible gold spray paint
• cake stand

Instructions

1. Cover the cake with fondant. 
2. Prepare a large area by covering with newspaper or additional parchment paper. 
3. Wrap a large piece of parchment paper around the cake (make sure a straight edge is along the bottom)
4. Ensure that the wrap is straight with about 1 inch of the bottom of the cake exposed. 
5. Pin the parchment paper in place, or tape it. I use pins that stick into the cake so the parchment cannot slide. 
6. Place cake in the middle of your prepared painting area. 
7. Spray the exposed area with gold edible food spray. Also spray your gum-paste lily. 
8. Allow to set for half an hour to dry. 
9. Remove the parchment paper. 
10. Transfer the cake to a cake stand. 
11. Adorn with a your golden lily.