I do so love to try out new things, and this 4th of July cake gave me lots of new things to play on/with. As usual, some of the experiments worked out great and other not so great.
Experiment #1
The bottom tier of the cake is my semi-failed attempt at freezing a fully fondant decorated cake. I read somewhere that this was possible, so I wanted to give it a try. I crumb coated the cake, and then covered it in fondant and added the red stripes. I let the cake sit for three hours so that the fondant could dry, and then I carefully wrap the cake in plastic wrap. After three days in the freezer I removed it and keeping the plastic wrap in place I let it defrost. Once defrosted I removed the plastic wrap and found....
Welllllll.....
The cake itself froze just fine, but the defrosting caused some issue with the fondant (Wilton Preferred). The fondant didn't crumble and the colors didn't bleed, but the texture of the fondant got very soft and very gummy. And the plastic wrap I used to cover the cake left little marks all over the fondant. Maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I took the plastic wrap off too soon, or maybe I should have frozen the cake a bit before I wrap it in the plastic wrap??? Someone recently told we that I should have place the cake in a cardboard box instead of wrapping it in plastic wrap.
Who knows... anyway, I'm not going to freeze a fondant covered cake again.
Experiment #2
Now the inside of the cake was my attempt at the famous "
Flag Inside the Cake" cake.
My "Flag Inside the Cake" didn't come out too, too bad. The red torted layers were a little bit thinner than the white layer, but overall it looked pretty good. I also tried adding little snow flake sprinkles to the blue batter hoping it would give the look of stars in the baked blue layer, but most of the snow flakes just sank to the bottom. You can see a few poking out of the blue section, but I would have to call the snow flake experiment a flop.
But one thing that worked really well was using a 4" cookie cutter to cut out the interior of the blue layer. Then I used the same cutter to cut out the red and white layers that fit perfectly inside the blue layer. The
instructions from the Land O' Lakes web page say to spread icing around the inner cut edge of the blue cake before you slip the white and red layers inside, but my cakes fit so tightly together that I couldn't fit any icing.
Experiment #3
The top tier of the cake was made to look like an exploding fire cracker. Surprisingly this part was really easy to make, and the top tier came out looking pretty good.
You start by cutting out circles of red white and blue fondant. Also cut out a piece of wax or parchment paper the same size. I used my trusty 4" cookie cutter.
Then stack the circles with blue at the bottom, the piece of parchment paper next, and then the red followed last by the white. The parchment paper will keep the red from sticking to the bottom layer of blue.
Next place the stack of fondant round in the center of the cake, and then cover the cake and the fondant stack with blue fondant. Note: This is a dummy cake and that is why the sides are so straight and the top edge so sharp.
Score the top of the fondant, cutting down to the parchment without cutting through it.
Carefully curl back the blue-red-white layer of fondant to make the explosion look.
When all the wedges are curled out, remove the parchment paper to expose the blue fondant underneath.
Next decorate with fondant stars, confetti, and streamers.
I also filled the depression with red, white, and blue Sixlets. Those things are so good.
So all-in-all not too bad. I learned a lot of things with this cake, and my family was impressed with the "Flag inside the Cake".
Happy 4Th of July everyone !!!
Carol
