Basically you invite family and friends to come over, make their guesses on what they think the sex of the baby is and then at the end of the party you cut into it and the filling or cake color reveals the answer! This is even more fun when the parents don't even know yet. What they do is have their ultrasound tech write down the answer and then put it into an envelope and seal it up. The parents then hand that to the caker so they can make the cake or cupcakes. That way, when the cake is sliced, even the parents get to hear the news for the first time!
For this particular party, the Mom-to-be collects hat boxes so I just copied one of hers for the cake. The only difference here is that the scroll work on her hat box is white and she wanted a pink and blue cake.
This is what I call a "panel" cake. You roll out panels of fondant and adhere them to the cake. The buttercream crumb coat holds it onto the sides of the cake. So I rolled out two 15 inch long by 4 inch wide rectangles for the outside of the box and then rolled out a 10 inch round for the top of the cake. After that it was just rolling out the 3/4 inch white strips and then adding them to the cake.
Piping is a bit more tricky. When using a light colored fondant and a dark colored icing to pipe the decorations you must always be aware that wherever you pipe is immediately stained. There are no second chances. There are two ways you can do this. Either freehand, which is what I did here, or use imprint tools. If you use the tools just make sure you don't press too hard onto the side. This is cake, it will dent and you can put holes into your fondant. But it is the way to get perfect piping so many use the imprint tools.
The trickiest part of this whole cake was the cording! The problem was that it was either too stretchy and broke, or too dry and broke. It took me a few times of trying to get it right. In hindsight I wish I'd used real ribbon for this effect. I really try not to use non-edibles on my cakes but in this case I wish I'd thought to do so before I started on the cake and was committed to the fondant cording.
Now the truth about cakers. We are never truly happy with our cakes. Once in a blue moon we will make one that we wouldn't change anything about. But usually we wish we had the time to change something, or re-do some part of it. The truth of the matter is that we know the only person that it's bugging is us. The clients are perfectly happy and don't even see the imperfection that is driving us nuts enough that we would re-do it if we could. However, this is what makes us better the more we work. The next time I have to do cording on a cake I'll know to either be ready for a patience wearing stretch of time or to buy non-edible cording or ribbon for it. For cakers it's a constant life of "live and learn". And with each and every cake we learn.
P. S. ....it's a Girl! See the whole party plan tomorrow on our Cherry Party Blog!
Cat
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