Last week my youngest turned two years old.
With most of my kids birthdays, I end up making the cake I want, usually something covered in fondant, or, if I’m too tired, buttercream. Admittedly, her last birthday cake was much fancier, but for this lady’s birthday, though, I wanted to make her her dream cake. Even though she’s tiny, it wasn’t to hard to figure out what that would be. And if you frequent this blog it may be glaringly obvious:
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VERY BERRY COVERED BIRTHDAY CAKE
After many hard lessons learned over the course of the last year involving berry theft and epic tantrums, I waited to decorate the cake with berries until a certain someone went down for her afternoon nap.
Thinly sliced strawberries on the bottom tier, blueberries in the middle, and raspberries on top.
When the time came for Lady(our favorite nickname for her) to blow out the candles, she did so timidly.
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Then we let her have at it.
She was in berry heaven.
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The cake was a deep dark chocolate frosted with a mountain of whipped cream. Very appropriate for a cake covered in berries as they were held up very well by the stabilized whipped cream and the sweetness wasn’t excessive. I used gelatin to stabilize my whipped cream and finished the cake off with a simple garnish of mint.
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I have to say, this is a pretty patriotic looking cake as well. Not my intent when making it, but it was certainly seasonally appropriate.
Lady’s favorite present? Her very own little bike. She’s been climbing up and air pedaling on her older siblings bikes for long enough, now. Needless to say she was thrilled.
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By the way, anybody up for my GREATEST CAKE DECORATING SECRET EVER?
What is the biggest secret to getting a huge, multi-tiered cake without slaving away for days?
Styrofoam cake rounds.
You can find them in any cake decorating store, and sometimes craft stores as well.
For this cake, the bottom tier is made entirely of styrofoam. All I had to do was cover it thinly in whipped cream and layer strawberry sliced around the bottom half. Can you tell? Hopefully not =)
No hours of baking, no ingredients to buy, and most importantly, no massive amounts of cake left over. Not that leftovers aren’t good, but multi-tiered cakes usually leave you with more than you can handle. And with this trick, it looks impressive without putting a lot of work into it.
After the cake is gone? Keep those styrofoam rounds! Just gently wash them with soap and then let them air-dry completely. At 3-5 dollars a piece, you can use them for many, many cakes.
- 2 layers 4" round chocolate cake
- 2 layers 6" round chocolate cake
- 1 8" styro foam cake round
- Stabilized Whipped Cream(made from 4 C. Heavy whipping cream)
- 2 C. Raspberries
- 2 lb. Blueberries
- 2 lb. Strawberries, thinly sliced lengthwise
- Mint leaves, to garnish
- Cover the 8" styrofoam round in a layer of whipped cream.
- Press the thinly sliced strawberries into the cream all along the bottom tier of the round.
- Place the 6" cakes on top of the styrofoam round, filling the middle with whipped cream.
- Cover the cake in whipped cream.
- Press blueberries across the cake in straight lines, from bottom to top.
- Top the blueberry layer with the 4" cakes, filling the middle with whipped cream.
- cover the cake in whipped cream and press raspberries into the cream, across the sides.
- Keep cake refrigerated.
Here are a few more cake ideas you might be interested in:
