jubilee birthday cake

it's my sister in laws birthday today -  

a great opportunity to create a very british birthday cake!

 (especially with the diamond jubilee celebrations taking place this weekend). 

with only this morning to make the cake and decorate it, I had a lot to do in little time! 

(hence the imperfections!)

luckily i had all the ingredients, tools and equipment left over from previous projects.

I created a 6 inch carrot cake, filled it with buttercream and applied a crumb coat with the remaining frosting.

I used this 50's style cake stand as a base as I didn't have any cake drums and thought it might add to the british party/celebration theme. The cake fit perfectly.

I then rolled out some icing with a dusting of icing sugar underneath to prevent it from sticking. 

I applied a few dabs of ruby red icing gel to the icing first. I created a card template for my bunting, which is what i aimed to decorate the sides of the cake with. 

I then used a sharp knife to cut out a series of triangles. I repeated this with the blue and white icing too. 

(I used royal blue icing gel to create the colour i wanted). 

I used my acrylic letter cutters to create my birthday message to be displayed on the top of the cake.

they aren't spring loaded, which can sometimes be a pain as the icing tends to get stuck when tapping them out. I find that it's easier if you roll out the icing about 2mm in thickness and set it to one side for a while before using. when the icing hardens slightly it is easier to remove from the cutters. 

I wanted to add decorative flowers to various sections of the bunting, so I used my flower cutter with spring loaded plunger. I then used a ball tool to provide a groove in the centre of the flowers. This would make it easier for me to glue my edible decorations in the centre. I used a fine clean paintbrush to apply the glue. 

once i iced the cake I began applying edible glue to the reverse of the bunting triangles and flowers and attached them to the cake. ideally the decorations should be left at least 24 hours to harden but as I only had a short amount of time I had to work quickly. 

 I made a union jack flag by creating a blue rectangular base,  I added the white stripes on top and then the red. I took a small rolling pin and rolled out the flag to flatten the icing and merge the colours together. 

I then used two butterfly cutters to cut out my british flag butterflies. I left them to dry  face down on a toblerone box to achieve a more realistic effect. 

by the time I had glued all my bunting around the edges of my cake and finished cutting all the letters out, 

I was ready to put the finishing touches to my cake. 

I rolled 3 small balls of icing and applied a dab of edible glue underneath and on top. 

I then positioned them and the butterflies on the top of the cake and glued the letters on. 

(at this stage i was really rushing as we were now running a little late for the birthday party!)

I think sometimes it helps to be in a rush as you tend to be a little less fussy and just get the job done!