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Decorative Festive Themed Mini Cakes
Published 19 December 2012 by Veronica Stillwater
Decorative Festive Themed Mini Cakes – Great for Christmas or New Year!
Use your star cutters and open scallop edge crimpers to decorate these all star mini cakes!
Mini cakes! They are wonderful! These are simple, quick and easy to do and don't take much time at all. Consisting of a simple fondant cake covering and fondant decorations these were made in no time at all and looked really pretty too. I haven't included the recipe for the buttercream but you could use a small quantity of any of the frostings used in my previous posts with cupcake recipes. For the cakes themselves, I made up a Victoria sponge sandwich cake mixture and used a x6 individual cup baking tray which is really used for Yorkshire puddings but it works as effectively well for these mini cakes, it was just a case of lining the base with a small circular disc of greaseproof paper, lightly oiling each of the cups and then baking the sponges ready to decorate. Hope you enjoy decorating your own baked mini cakes and that, maybe these will provide some inspiration for decorating your own mini cakes!
For the mini cakes:
You will need:
6 Vanilla sponge cakes (I used a Victoria sponge sandwich recipe and baked in an individual x6 cup tray)
Small knife
Star cutter
Open scallop crimper
Palette knife
Rolling pin
Small clean, dry paint brush
Ingredients:
Approx 2 tablespoons buttercream
450g White fondant ready to roll icing
Approx ½ teaspoon powdered red food colouring
Edible dusting powders in silver and gold
Prepare your mini cakes by smoothing a very thin layer of the buttercream around the sides of the cake as well as across the top. This will act as a glue in order for the fondant to stick to the cake neatly as well as produce a nice finish when it comes to slicing. Cut the fondant so that you have 2 pieces, one piece of approx 300g and the other 150g set aside. Divide the 300g portion into 6 and roll into round balls. Lightly dust the work surface with icing sugar as well as the fondant and rolling pin too. Roll out each ball to a flattened circle with a thickness of approx 3-4mm. Lift the fondant pieces one at a time and cover each of the cakes with the fondant. Place the fondant on each cake centrally positioned ensuring it will cover the size of the cake and starting for the centre at the top, gently press the fondant and smooth it out down the sides and neatly pressing it to the sides all the way around. Once the cake is covered with the fondant and the fondant is neatly in positioned you can trim away any excess using a small knife. Trim each of the cakes as necessary adding any excess fondant to the remaining white fondant set aside earlier. Halve the remaining white fondant, roll into a ball, lightly dust the work surface, rolling pin and fondant ball and roll out to a thickness of approx 3-4mm in thickness. Cut 15 stars to use as decorations. Glue the stars together in threes, by placing one on the work surface, using a small dab of buttercream to secure another on top, slightly to the left and again repeat with another star on top of this star. Repeat this process again and then repeat with the stars but working right to left instead. (This is to create a bow effect from the stars forming an arch as shown in the photo). Set aside. Colour any remaining white fondant using the powdered food colouring and roll out into strips, measuring the height of the sides of your cake to cut the appropriate width of the red fondant for the ribbon around the cake. Trim your ribbons to the correct width and length and emboss using the open scallop edge crimper, keeping it closed and pressing lightly to create one starting point, from this first impression keep using the crimper moving in a circular direction to make impressions of it that make it look like a flower or just as scattered petals as per the photos. Use the star cutter, pressing lightly so as only to leave an impression, working quickly to avoid the fondant drying out. Once you have embossed your red fondant strips you can attach them to the cake using a few dabs of buttercream placed around one side of the cake. I cut my ribbon strips so that there was a section left free in the centre to place the stars as a central decoration. Once you have the ribbons on all the cakes, you can then start to place further decorations for a bow type middle, for across the top of the cake, use the star cutter to emboss star prints and dust with the edible dusting powders in silver and gold or the colours of your choice. You can also cut more red stars from the remaining red fondant and decorate your mini cake using a row of red stars placed evenly next to each other around the cake sides, securing in place with a dab of buttercream and positioning one centrally on top for an entirely starry effect. Have fun creating your own designs and using different colours and ideas! Until next time! Happy baking, decorating & Happy holidays!
