Cake Baking Experts, I Need Your Help!!!
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive March 2004:
Cake Baking Experts, I Need Your Help!!!
I am making a Batman cake for my ds' birthday party this Saturday. I want it to be a double layer round cake, with the Batman signal on top. I have two 9" round cake pans. I have only made a few decorated cakes before, and they weren't all that great, so I need your help! I have never made a double layer round cake before. It seems like the cake would rise in the middle, so they wouldn't stack right. Can I prevent that from happening or do I have to cut the risen part off? If so, what do I use to cut it with? Can I bake both cakes at the same time? And what do you suggest I do to make the bat signal? I was going to use yellow and black crystal sprinkles, but how do I get them to stay in their designated areas and not spill off onto the wrong section of the cake? Please help me! Here is a picture of the bat signal:
Thanks so much in advance!
Someone else might have a different idea, but I always flip my first layer upside down so that the flat bottom is on top, then I put the top layer on right side up.
edible cake topper
batman cake kit
Check these out, Amy. You could also blow the image up to the size you want and trace it to wax paper with gel icing, then transfer it to the cake. Then you would fill in the colors using either icing (that's a LOT of sugar, not to mention the black icing--meaning lots of black mouths and lips and whatever else the kids get it on)or the sugar crystals you were talking about. If you're careful the gel should hold the sugar in. When making a two layer cake, yes, you will probably have to cut the risen part of the bottom layer off. Just take a long knife (like a bread knife) and cut the top off level with the pan before taking it out. OR, put the bottom layer upside down (so the risen part is on the bottom). The weight of the cake should make it pretty flat--this is what I would do. Ice between the layers, also. If your oven racks aren't level, make sure you turn the cake pans about 1/3 of the way into baking them or they'll be lopsided. Heck, they may end up lopsided anyway. Mine always do! lol And remember, kids will be eating this. They're not really going to care so much what it looks like. Have fun with it! I've decorated my share of cakes and some of the best are ones that are very simple and I used toys (washed of course) as decorations. I put five little plastic pokemon on a cake once with "Happy Birthday, Robin" and he loved it! Good luck and we'll expect pictures! 
LOL, Marg! I was still typing when you posted. Great minds!
Amy,
Its best to cut the top part off the cake. If you just flip it it may separate. You can either cut it with a knife as Cat suggested or you can use thread or dental floss, wrap the ends around your fingers as if you were going to floss and pull it through the cake. If you are going to put a filling other than frosting in the middle, make sure to put a "dam" of icing at the edges to stop the filling from gushing out. I think the pattern transfer is the best bet, An alternative to starring in the pattern would be to fill in in with the writing gel.
Good Luck! Please post a picture
Okay, I'm liking what I'm hearing so far. Only thing that I'm still worried about is how to fill in the yellow and black of the bat signal. I would prefer to use the tiny colored crystals as opposed to icing or writing gel, but I don't have a clue as to how to keep them evenly spread and not falling into the wrong areas of the cake. There has to be a trick! Thanks so much to the above posters for their WONDERFUL help! More ideas would certainly be welcome.
And I *might* post a picture if the cake comes out halfway decent. Lol!
Amy, you could frost the cake with a bright yellow frosting. Smooth it with a non-serrated knife or spatula dipped in hot water. Cut the bat form out of heavy paper, making a stencil and sprinkle the black colored sugar on to the top of the cake.
To keep a cake from rising higher in the center, tilt the pans to coat the sides with cake batter 3/4 of the way up the sides of the pans. Cutting a cake top gives you a surface that is almost impossible to frost without picking up crumbs.
Okay Amy, here is what I would do. Get the phone book, call the bakery.....no, just kidding! I make cakes all the time. Put the bottom layer on the plate upside down so that the rounded top part is on the bottom. As someone else mentioned, the weight will flatten it out and any gapping along the edges of the cake bottom and plate can be filled in with frosting.
Frost what is now the top of the bottom layer, making sure to overlap the edges a bit. Then put the other layer on top of it, right side up, so that ultimately you have the two flat bottoms together with frosting in between. This will leave you with the top being the normal top of the second layer. It might be a bit rounded, but it shouldn't present any problems.
Then frost either the top or the sides first, I find no difference in order as far as how it looks. Smooth it as best you can and then go over it with a knife continually dipped in a tall glass of hot water to smooth it even more. Shake the knife before applying it to the cake, you don't want to drown it!
If it were me I would then edge the top and bottom of the cake with fancy frosting achieved by using a pastry bag and tip. To make this super easy, you can buy Wilton frosting tubes at the store and buy a couple plastic tips that screw right on the frosting tube. It looks best if you draw the frosting out a bit, then push backwards, then forwards...a back and forth motion.
I would do the logo the same way. Buy a tube of Wilton yellow frosting and tube of black. Buy a writing tip for the black and a star tip for the yellow. Draw the black parts with the writing tip and then fill in the yellow parts with the star tip. You just squirt out a star, and then another one directly next to the first. You completely fill it in with stars. If you still want yellow crystals, I still suggest the black frosting tube with a writing tip ( a writing tip is a tip with just one small hole in the center) and then filling in the area with the crystals.
Also, the way *I* decorate is the same way Cat does. I buy little plastic figures and plunk them on the cake. Do you have any little Batman figures you can use? It always looks really cute. I also decorate around the figures with roses but then I have girls. If you have Batman and Robin and maybe a Batmobile or other Bat accessories, it will look REALLY cute. If you have a lot of accessories or figures you might want to make a sheet cake instead so you have more surface area for all the stuff.
Finally, as if this post wasn't long enough, I wanted to add a little story. I painstakingly make all my own frosting roses, just like you see on bakery cakes. I do my best and set time aside to make them up ahead of time and freeze them as applying them frozen works best. Anyway, it's a lot of work! One day after making my daughter's cake, I had TONS of leftover frosting, so I made up some cupcakes for my other daughter's class at school, just as a surprise treat. I didn't have enough roses left over for all the cupcakes, so I simply colored some white frosting and took a knife and kind of SHOOK a BLOB of colored frosting on top of the frosted cupcakes to just liven them up a bit. BLOB of colored frosting. I take them to school. This little girl comes running up to me, cupcake in hand..."Oh Mrs. Gregory!!! Can you tell my mommy how to make these BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS so that she can make them for MY cake??" I stare at little Allison, and stare at the BLOB on her cupcake. And I think of all the TRUE roses I had made for the cake at home...all the time I had spent on them. And here was this first grader perfectly content (more than content!) with a BLOB. Lesson? They're kids and don't really notice!! Good luck!
I just looked at your logo again. If you do the yellow and black frosting you'll need to use the star tip for the black 'wings', too. I didn't notice how much black there was!! I'd still outline it with the writing tip. I truly can't imagine doing that whole logo in crystals with no frosting piping as an edge outline.
BTW, when initially frosting the whole cake, apply the frosting either really THICK, or really THIN. If you go thick you'll avoid pulling crumbs from the surface of the cake and getting them mixed up in your pretty frosting.
If you go super thin you'll pull crumbs, but just ignore them. Then refrigerate the whole thing for an hour or so and then refrost it and by then the crumbs will have 'set' and no more will pull up. If you do this, be sure to frost the part in between the layers really thick as crumbs don't matter in that spot.
At the bakery/deli that I work at we have edible image machine. Someone can bring in a picture and we make into an image as small as you want up to an 8x10. We charge $7 for one sheet. Maybe you could call around? Just another idea.
I did buy two Batman cake figures, one Batman and one Batmobile. Maybe I will make a small bat signal, have the two figures, and write happy birthday Adrian. Will that all fit???
When you go to icing it it helps if you freeze the cake. it keeps the crumbs out of the icing and makes the cake easier to work with. I always freeze, especially if I am going to cut, it make the cutting easier.
Frost the sides with your main color (white?) and then once you have it all frosted, go back over it with a wet knife to make it really smooth and shiny.
For the crystals/sprinkles you could use a small kitchen funnel. Fill the funnel with the sprinkles and then just guide the funnel around so that it spills out in the right areas. Get a funnel that has a pretty small opening where the sprinkles would come out.
Okay, I am definitely going to freeze it, I totally forgot about that. How long to freeze it though?
And Robin, great idea! I have to get a funnel now, it's one of those things I still haven't replaced yet after the fire...
Thanks!
Another question! Do I use 1 cake mix box for each cake pan, or 1 box total and split between both pans?
One cake mix, split between the pans.
If I use 9 Inch I use 2, because they never seem big enough when I use 1 mix. If it looks like it could be too full, I'll make a few cupcakes with the extra.
I like the funnel idea too, I'll have to remember that.
You can freeze it over night or for just an hour our so, it really doesn't matter.
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