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A Berry Covered Birthday Cake + a HUGE cake decorating secret!!

June 30, 2014 by Kayley 44 Comments

A Berry Covered Birthday Cake | thekitchenmccabe.com

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:

A

VERY BERRY COVERED BIRTHDAY CAKE
A Berry Covered Birthday Cake | thekitchenmccabe.com

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.

A Berry Covered Birthday Cake | thekitchenmccabe.com

When the time came for Lady(our favorite nickname for her) to blow out the candles, she did so timidly.

.

Then we let her have at it.

A Berry Covered Birthday Cake | thekitchenmccabe.com

She was in berry heaven.

.

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.

.

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.

A Berry Covered Birthday Cake | thekitchenmccabe.comA Berry Covered Birthday Cake | thekitchenmccabe.com

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.

.

By the way, anybody up for my GREATEST CAKE DECORATING SECRET EVER?

A Berry Covered Birthday Cake | thekitchenmccabe.com

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.

A Berry Covered Birthday Cake | thekitchenmccabe.com

Berry Covered Birthday Cake + a HUGE cake decorating secret!!
 
Print
These instructions are based on a three tiered cake made up of an 8", 6", and 4" tier. Add cardboard round bottoms and supports as needed.
Ingredients
  • 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
Instructions
  1. Cover the 8" styrofoam round in a layer of whipped cream.
  2. Press the thinly sliced strawberries into the cream all along the bottom tier of the round.
  3. Place the 6" cakes on top of the styrofoam round, filling the middle with whipped cream.
  4. Cover the cake in whipped cream.
  5. Press blueberries across the cake in straight lines, from bottom to top.
  6. Top the blueberry layer with the 4" cakes, filling the middle with whipped cream.
  7. cover the cake in whipped cream and press raspberries into the cream, across the sides.
  8. Keep cake refrigerated.
3.2.2925

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Filed Under: Cakes, Desserts, Personal Tagged With: berries, birthday, cake

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Comments

  1. holly waterfall says

    June 30, 2014 at 6:46 PM

    First of all, this is such a stunning cake! So beautiful, and your little Lady is so adorable.
    Secondly, I too made a completely styrofoam cake for my kiddo’s birthday party a couple of years ago. I wanted the look of a tiered cake but wanted the kids to eat cupcakes. So that’s what I went with! Such a smart idea 🙂

    Reply
    • Kayley says

      June 30, 2014 at 9:08 PM

      Thank you, Holly! Isn’t it the best little cheat!? That must have been an awesome party! Do you have pics on your blog?

      Reply
  2. Consuelo - Honey & Figs says

    July 1, 2014 at 7:45 AM

    Ohhh I don’t even know where to start. First of all, congratulations to the birthday lady – she looks plain adorable in her fairy costume :’) I hope she had the most amazing day!
    Secondly, this cake must be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. You’re ever so so talented! I mean, it looks absolutely stunning! I want one of these for my birthdat too 😉
    Pinning! xx

    Reply
    • Kayley says

      July 2, 2014 at 3:07 AM

      You always leave the nicest comments, Consuelo, Thank you! She had a great day =) Thanks for pinning!

      Reply
  3. dina says

    July 1, 2014 at 3:34 PM

    the cake is beautiful!

    Reply
    • Kayley says

      July 2, 2014 at 3:08 AM

      Thank you Dina! =)

      Reply
  4. Derik says

    July 1, 2014 at 7:30 PM

    Such a great looking cake. The idea of using foam cake rounds is fantastic. Definitely putting that in my mental file cabinet for later use.

    Reply
    • Kayley says

      July 2, 2014 at 3:09 AM

      Thank you Derik! The rounds have definitely saved me on more than one occasion 😉

      Reply
  5. Jeni says

    July 1, 2014 at 11:18 PM

    This is an absolutely gorgeous cake! I love the fresh and vibrant look the berries give it!

    Reply
    • Kayley says

      July 2, 2014 at 3:10 AM

      Thank you so much, Jeni! Aren’t berries the best?! All I have to do is let them shine…minimal effort required 😉

      Reply
  6. Jessica @ A Happy Food Dance says

    July 2, 2014 at 4:04 AM

    Such a gorgeous cake! And I love this idea – so many occasions where I am left with massive amounts of leftover cake. Your daughter is such a doll too, looked like a wonderful birthday!

    Reply
  7. Mina says

    July 4, 2014 at 2:17 AM

    I love the berry covered cake! Although the styrofoam idea is not a huge secret with wedding cake decorators. Sometimes people want the height of a wedding cake without paying for all that cake. They call them dummy cakes.

    Anyway, since you said you only used the dummy cake for the bottom tier, how did you stack the other 2 without the 4 inch sinking into the 6 inch? I can only imagine a lot of dowels and cake boards. Thanks!

    Reply
    • Kayley says

      July 5, 2014 at 11:30 PM

      Thank you Mina! True, it’s definitely not a huge secret if you’re in the cake biz, but so many people who don’t know much about cake decorating will hopefully find it useful =)
      I actually didn’t use any supports for this cake because the top two tiers are only a 6″ and 4″. I also used a very dense chocolate cake that was very sturdy. Had I done larger tiers I definitely would have used boards and dowels =)

      Reply
  8. Jocelyn @BruCrew Life says

    July 6, 2014 at 5:56 PM

    What an absolutely gorgeous cake!!! Love love love all the berries around the sides! And if you hadn’t spilled the beans on the bottom layer, I would never have guessed it was styrofoam! Such a fabulous tip! I have made many wedding cakes over the years…love the thought of making layers easy!!!

    Reply
    • Kayley says

      July 8, 2014 at 4:08 PM

      Thank you so much, Jocelyn! Styrofoam definitely makes things easier!

      Reply
  9. Ana Prado says

    July 30, 2014 at 2:43 PM

    Hi, love the cake! Besides heavy cream did you use any other ingredient for the whipping cream?

    Ana

    Reply
    • Kayley says

      July 31, 2014 at 3:52 PM

      Thank you Ana! Just whipped cream and a little sugar =)

      Reply
  10. Brenda says

    May 17, 2015 at 8:51 PM

    Absolutely beautiful! Lovely work!

    Reply
  11. Lawrence says

    June 1, 2016 at 7:18 AM

    Lovely Cake! Please elaborate on the process of using gelatin to stabilise whipped cream. Thx!

    Reply
  12. elisa says

    April 20, 2017 at 6:59 AM

    Hi! This looks like a Great Idea for me to use for my daughter’s baby shower! Especially since I am GF and heavy cake layers tend to crumble. Please where is the recipe for stabilizing the whipped cream for the icing?

    Reply
    • Kayley says

      April 29, 2017 at 3:39 PM

      Hi Elisa! I hope this works well for your shower! I don’t have a specific recipe, but you can google “stabilized whipped cream” and find a lot of different recipes! =)

      Reply

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