This took me a lot of time. I woke up the around 7am the day of my daughters bridal shower and before I even had my first cup of coffee, I started baking the cakes. (I always need my coffee to start the day and without it, it takes me a while to comprehend anything going on around me or anything anyone says. Basically, I'm pretty darned slow before my first cuppa!) I didn't finish until 1pm and to me that seemed like forever.
Making the cakes was the easy part, I've made cakes a lot out of a box or scratch, but that has never really been the hard part. My sister took a cake decorating class one time and refused to show me how to make a rose as perfect as hers, so I always just assumed it was super hard to do! I still can't make a rose, but I'm going to be working on that soon!
I put the neckline part of the cakes in first. I needed a skin tone color, that was a hard part for me because I couldn't just go buy a tan colored frosting. For experimenting, I used probably about three separate cups of water in a clear glass before I figured out what I needed. I used the little, cheap, liquid food coloring that you can get at the grocery store in the baking aisle, mixed the food coloring with the water and if it didn't look right, I dumped it out, rinsed the glass out and started over. This was a better method than messing up my frosting! I started with with 1 drop red, 1 drop yellow and 1 drop of green. (I know, it sounds crazy, right?! But it works!) Then one drop at a time add red and if needed a bit more yellow. Mix thoroughly after each drop. Holding the glass in a good light helps get the color to where you want it. I ended up using more yellow drops than the red. For a darker skin tone use red, yellow and blue in equal amounts (1 -2 drops each) to start. Mix well. Adjust by eye with red and yellow until you reach the desired color. I wrote each combination down that I did with the food coloring and water and when I got it right, added the same amount of drops to the frosting. Just remember that when you mix the white frosting with the food coloring, just mix it very well after each drop of coloring.
I took the tan frosting, made a 'V' shape at the top of one cake for the bride and used white on the rest of the cake. I put the cake in the refrigerator for half an hour and then smoothed it out with a steel spatula, running the spatula under hot water, and I just kept doing that to get it smooth. I took white frosting in a decorating bag, used a star tip and just made the stars along the V. The necklace and pearls on the dress part of the cake were made out of sugar pearls you can buy just about anywhere.
For the groom, I made a white V at the top of the cake and made the darkest blue I could make for the jacket part, putting that on the rest of the cake. I added a little more white frosting to the dark blue I made so it was a little lighter to do the lapel and just tried making the shape of a lapel, as you can see in the picture, it wasn't even but I was more worried about the bride cake more than the groom cake.
I put it in the fridge for half an hour and smoothed the frosting out the same way I did for the other cake, added the buttons and I was done!
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Up close, they really don't look that great, but I plan on doing and learning more for better results next time! Making the cakes was the easy part, I've made cakes a lot out of a box or scratch, but that has never really been the hard part. My sister took a cake decorating class one time and refused to show me how to make a rose as perfect as hers, so I always just assumed it was super hard to do! I still can't make a rose, but I'm going to be working on that soon!
I put the neckline part of the cakes in first. I needed a skin tone color, that was a hard part for me because I couldn't just go buy a tan colored frosting. For experimenting, I used probably about three separate cups of water in a clear glass before I figured out what I needed. I used the little, cheap, liquid food coloring that you can get at the grocery store in the baking aisle, mixed the food coloring with the water and if it didn't look right, I dumped it out, rinsed the glass out and started over. This was a better method than messing up my frosting! I started with with 1 drop red, 1 drop yellow and 1 drop of green. (I know, it sounds crazy, right?! But it works!) Then one drop at a time add red and if needed a bit more yellow. Mix thoroughly after each drop. Holding the glass in a good light helps get the color to where you want it. I ended up using more yellow drops than the red. For a darker skin tone use red, yellow and blue in equal amounts (1 -2 drops each) to start. Mix well. Adjust by eye with red and yellow until you reach the desired color. I wrote each combination down that I did with the food coloring and water and when I got it right, added the same amount of drops to the frosting. Just remember that when you mix the white frosting with the food coloring, just mix it very well after each drop of coloring.
I put it in the fridge for half an hour and smoothed the frosting out the same way I did for the other cake, added the buttons and I was done!
On these two cakes I used one cake mix out of the box, where I just added the water, oil & eggs, which tasted good, but I want to try different recipes and make the cakes from scratch.
The biggest mistake I made here was trying to smooth out the frosting. Everyone keeps saying Viva paper towel for smoothing the frosting and I had paper towel that had designs in it. Big mistake! All the frosting wanted to stick to the paper towel and make the frosting peak where ever I tried to smooth it out.
Next I tried waxed paper (doesn't work) and parchment paper (doesn't work, either) and then my last try was with a straight edged spatula for grilling (because it is big & straight and I don't have all of the cake tools most people use ) but what I didn't realize here is that when you rinse the spatula off in hot water, you have to dry the spatula! This is why the frosting looks light and dark in different places.
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