Birdcage Cakes with Edible Lace

These vintage birdcage cakes have a lovely romantic feel, don't they?
One would make a beautiful top tier to a wedding cake.

Don't analysed that too deeply, though: caged birds might not be the most appropriate symbol to start a marriage ...?!
(Perhaps it's a good thing that wedding cake trends are moving away from fondant, towards buttercream and fresh flowers instead!)

So, while edible lace isn't quite as trendy as it was a year or two ago, it is still handy to have in your cake-artist arsenal. ( And a big bonus is that it can be made in advance and stored.)

I've tried a couple of the commercial lace mixtures, but have had great success with this homemade brew:

Home-Made Edible Lace Mix

125ml (1/2 cup) water
15ml (1 tbs) tylose / CMC powder
15ml (1 tbs) icing sugar
30ml (2 tbs) corn flour
2.5ml (1/2 tsp) meringue powder
5ml (1 tsp) liquid glucose
2.5ml (1/2 tsp) glycerine
Gel food colour - white or other
Corn flour or luster dust

Mix the water and CMC powder together. Use a handheld electric beater and beat on med-high speed until the mixture is clear. (It will be jelly-like).
Beat in the dry ingredients. When well mixed, add in the glucose, glycerine and a few drops of gel colour.
This is a thick mixture, the consistency of set custard!

Dust a lace mat lightly with cornstarch, or alternatively with lustre dust.

Use an off-set palette knife to spread the lace mixture onto the lace mat. Keep the mixture in the pattern, and scrape off any excess.

( I only needed the swags part of this lace design, so I blocked off the rest with masking tape, to save on wastage and to ensure a neat edge to the lace.)

Place in an oven for approx. 10 minutes at 70'C.
When non-sticky to touch, spread a second layer of lace mixture over the first.

Return to the oven for another 10 minutes.
Leave to cool before peeling carefully from the mat.
When the lace has been sufficiently "baked", it is easy to remove from the mat. If it is still sticky, place in the oven a little longer.
If it is too dry, it will crack as you remove it from the mat. In this case, either cover with a slightly damp cloth, or spread another layer of the lace mix over it, return to the oven again - but check regularly and remove before it over-dries again.

Depending on the design, if you gently lift swags and delicate areas from the mat first, it makes it easier to peel off the rest of the lace.

Apply to the cake with a little edible glue.

Store lace that isn't being used in plastic sleeves in a sealed container. 

Away from humidity, edible lace has a very long shelf life. 

Happy decorating!

xxM

Wedding Cookies

Through absolutely no planning or foresight, I managed to coincide the scheduling of the Bride-to-Be Cookies Class with a royal wedding. Royal icing and royal wedding - splendid, what?! 😉

I distinctly remember sitting around a TV  in the school hall the day Prince Charles and Lady Diana got married. It was pure magic for a 6 year old little girl! 

Then roll the clock forward a couple of decades, and I only managed to catch glimpses of the next big royal wedding (William and Kate) while looking after a small baby and a toddler. 

I had a little more time to watch this one now. 

Did you see any of it? What did you think? I enjoyed the simplicity of it.

(Although I'm sure it was 100 times more complex behind-the-scenes than your average wedding!) 

So, in the spirit of simplicity - here's two gowns for the price of one ...

       

Just cut and trim.
No expensive designer price tags!

See a recent post on how to make the bouquet cookie here:
http://teacakeandcreate.blogspot.co.za/2018/04/kitchen-tea-bouquet-cookies.html


Happy decorating!

xxM

Letter Cake Cookie Cake

How gorgeous is this latest cake trend - "cookie cakes"?

It's one of those ideas that's so simple, yet so beautiful that you think - Why didn't I think of that?!

But I didn't! So I'll just follow the trend instead...

I made this one for my niece's birthday. It's not strictly a "cookie cake" because it's layers of cake - vanilla pound cake - not cookie. 

Same same, but different... 😉

One of the things I love about it is that you can make most of the elements in advance. Just add the fresh bits on the day of assembly. Winner!

 As an aside: I always prefer to work with cold cake; it's not as fragile and there's less crumb to deal with.
(Another reason to make the cake in advance!)
Once baked, let the cake cool down, then wrap it in a double layer of cling-wrap and freeze.

Cake doesn't take long to defrost, but I don't wait for that, anyway - preferring to slice it when it's semi-thawed.

If you are worried about the cake drying out, use a simple syrup to keep the sponge moist. Or select high-fat recipes, that freeze well.

For this particular cake, I was tried out a new pound cake recipe - this one from mycakeschool.com 

But you could use this delicious cream cheese pound cake recipe, or this hot milk vanilla sponge.

Use a plain round-tip icing nozzle, e.g. an Ateco 806, to pipe on your buttercream ...
try get your lines straighter than mine!

Place another layer of cake on top, and repeat piping rounds.
Decorate with meringue kisses, macarons, chocolates, berries, edible flowers, etc.

The possibilities are endless, and I can't wait to try another version ... a boy-themed one perhaps?

Happy baking!

xxM