The Great Cake Drape

 

Guess what guys?! Today I decided to give you another tutorial-style post! Yay for learning!

Unfortunately... along the way I had a few issues with what you would think would be a relatively simple cake. Boo!

But hey, I'm still learning as I go, so I decided to go ahead with this post anyway and you can take it as a what to and what NOT to do guide. Now that's some silver-lined lemonade!  

So, as you can probably assume from the image above, today I'm going to show you step by step how to make this fancy-pants cake featuring draped fondant, roses and pearls. Snazzy right?! 

Ok, so right off the bat let me give you a helpful hint: make sure your tiers are sized proportionately.

I think the cake looked better in real life than it appears in the photos, but looking at that first photo you can see that the top tier is slightly too small in contrast to the bottom tier so the entire thing just looks a little misshapen. If you don't have a stack of cake tins measuring every other dimension (as I clearly don't) then just use what you have and I'm sure it will still turn out fine. Like I said, in reality the cake looked fine and it's really only been since looking at the photos that it had been nagging at me. So my point is: try to proportion your tiers where possible but where you can't don't stress it too hard. 

My second major issue... that rose on the right making a break for freedom. 

If I had my way again I would have moved the drapery join and the adjourning rose inwards. As it is every time I look at these pictures I can imagine that rose sprouting legs and jumping for freedom off the edge of the cake! Call me paranoid, compulsive or simply observant... but that little detail really bugs me! So, to avoid that gnawing agitation that I am currently experiencing, make sure you know EXACTLY where you want each detail to be! Plan plan plan is all I can say!

Now that my neurotic frustrations are out the way, lets make some cake! 

What You Will Need

• Fondant/Gum paste Flowers (I used 5 but feel free to go nuts! - I will be posting a how to on these at some point too!)
• 2 x baked cakes (I used a 20cm and a 12cm...regrettably! See above griping)
• 2 x Cake boards
• Roughly 2lb of white fondant (will vary depending on the size of your cakes)
• Buttercream (or ganache... explained further below)
• Ribbon of a colour of your choice
• Fondant smoother
• Icing sugar / cornflour 
• Rolling pin 
• Wooden dowel 
• Water
• A butt load of patience! 

Step 1: Optimus (Cake) Prime

The first thing you will need to do is to prime your cakes ready for decorating. Simply split your cakes horizontally and fill them with you preferred flavour of buttercream icing (or ganache or really whatever filling floats your boat). Sandwich them back together, pop them onto individual cake boards and then give each of them a good crumb coating.

Never crumb coated before? Never fear!
It simply means covering the outside of the cake in a very thin coat of icing which will hold down any stray crumbs so that when you give it a final coat you wont have any flecks of cake ruining the look of your pretty icing. Set the cake aside in a cool spot until the icing is firm to touch (refrigerating for about 10min can speed this up if your short of time).

Give the cake a second, thicker coat of icing. Your don't want it too thick or else it might go soft under the fondant and you will end up with lumps and bumps. I aim for between 1-2cm usually. 

 

Now you want to try and get this layer as smooth and even as possible. Here in Western Australia the weather has been crazy hot for the last few months and I found my icing was just not wanting to set and so when I eventually had to put my fondant over the top the soft icing didn't hold its shape as well as I would have liked, resulting in a generally 'softer' looking cake without the sharper edges I was after. If you are in a similarly hot or humid area I would recommend considering using a ganache icing instead of the buttercream. Ganache stands up in the hot weather much better than buttercream, believe it or not, and will increase your chances of getting that crisper, more professional looking final result.

Buttercream or ganache, whichever you use, set the cake aside until the icing has set firm and is not 'tacky' to touch, give your cake board a wipe to get ride of any excess icing and then roll out your fondant. Using a dusting of icing sugar or cornflour will help stop the fondant from sticking to the counter top and rolling pin but be careful not to overuse it as it can dry out your fondant and result in cracks later on! Just use only as much as you need to roll out the fondant without it sticking. 

Additionally, when rolling out your fondant make sure you don't go picking it up, flipping it over etc. Give it a roll, carefully rotate it 45 degrees, roll again and repeat until it is even and at your desired thickness.

You want the fondant to be no thinner than 3mm (otherwise it will become prone to tearing!) and not much thicker than 5 or 6mm. Use your rolling pin to help lift the fondant and drape it over the top of the cake and the use the palms of your hands to carefully press it onto the cake. I always start at the top and work my way down the sides, gently stretching the adjusting the fondant to get rid of any creases which inevitably happen with round cakes! Use a sharp knife (or a pizza cutter...) to trim the excess fondant from the bottom of the cake      

Next up, I grab my fondants smoother (pictured below) and go all over my cake with it to get rid of any imperfections. It also gives the cake a shinier, smoother look and for less than $10 I would say that's worth the money!

Do the same thing for your other cake layer so that you have two, fondant covered tiers just waiting to play the cake equivalent of stacks on!

Yes. We have another mistake on my part.

When I was trimming the excess fondant from my smaller cake I may have cut a little too close to the base so that you can see a little of the icing/cake glaring out. But guess what? We are covering the base of our cakes in ribbons and pearls so no one will ever know! Most convenient I would say.

Grab your wooden dowel and trim it if necessary (you want it to be just shorter than the height of the two cakes when stacked. Find the centre of your bottom tier and insert the dowel, pushing it all the way down to the cake board below. Dab a little extra buttercream on the bottom of your top tier (to act as glue) and press it down onto the dowel so it is is sitting smack-bang in the centre of the bottom tier.  

 Time to pretty up the base of the tiers with some ribbon! Now you can use ribbon made of fondant if you want but I opted to go for the real thing since I had it lying around and just really liked the colour of it.

There are a number of ways you can go about attaching the ribbon to the cakes. Some people pipe a ring of icing around the cake and press the ribbon into it, but I find the fat from the icing has a habit of leaking through the ribbon and staining it. Not the greatest look!

I decided to try out a new technique I had read about for the first time and overall I was fairly impressed by it. You simply take your ribbon, dunk it in clean water, thoroughly wring and use your fingers to squeeze out any excess water so the ribbon is just damp but not overly wet to touch. Then you simply wrap it around the cake and press the ends together to seal them. The dampness will help the ribbon stick to the sugar in the fondant and when it dries it will hold on tight.

Time to make some pearls! Grab some extra white fondant or gumpaste and use it to roll out enough small balls to go around the base of each tier. I tried to get all of mine as close to 1cm high as I could. For a little extra pizazz you can give your pearls a light  dusting with lustre dust or you can simply use them as they are. Attach them to the cake using small dabs of water, getting them as close to the side of the cake as you can without squashing them.  

  

Looks like its all coming together now! Thumbs up for progress.

So you now have your basic cake structure and its time to dress it up and make her  pretty!

To make your fondant drapery grab 3 or 4 dowels (depending on how thick you want the drape to be) and line them up on a bench top, evenly spaced with around a cm between each one. Thinly roll out some fondant large enough to cover the dowels, you want it thin enough to have the look of fine material (slightly thinner than what you did for the cake covering).

Place the fondant over the dowels and carefully press the fondant down so the grooves are well defined. Trim off any excess fondant and then leave the fondant for a few minutes to firm up a little. You don't want to leave it so long that it starts turning hard otherwise you may get cracks and lines when you try to bend it around the cake. A couple of minutes should do the trick. Repeat with a second drape for the second tier.

Using a few dabs of water as glue, pinch the two ends of the drapes and stick them to the cake. I started at the top and worked my way down. When joining the two drapes in the middle of the cake I tucked the bottom drape around the end of the first one to make it look more like one flowing piece.  

 Grab your edible roses and use a little more water or edible glue to attach them at each point that the drapes intersect the cake. You may need to support the roses as the water dries but they should hold their positions when fully dried.


 

 

 

   


And there you have it!

Simply yet fancy-pants cake to serve at birthdays, anniversaries or to simply carry around and give you an air of superiority!

Hit up the comments below with your thoughts and let me know if you give it a go!