“I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for Cake Boss. I received product samples and a promotional item to thank me for participating.”
I had the fantastic opportunity to host a Cake Boss party last weekend. It was so much fun! I have made cakes for years, usually with some fun ones for my girls birthdays. I thought you might like to learn how to make a cake….like the boss, Cake Boss that is. 🙂
I realize that saying I’m going to teach you how to make a cake might sound exceptionally simple, but lots of people don’t know the tricks to get a level or flat cake every time.
When you go to decorate your cake, it really makes a difference to have a level cake. Especially if you are doing something special like the Rapunzel tower cake I made a few years back, but even simple cakes like the Hello Kitty cake I made look better when they are level. So let me show you the secrets of making a cake and show you all the fun we had decorating the cakes. We had never worked with fondant before and it is actually a lot easier than anyone thought. 🙂
To start your cake, make sure you grease and flour your pan. I spray mine and add flour on top. Mix up your cake mix and bake according to the directions on the box. The Cake Boss cake was really yummy! You can get those and all of the Cake Boss supplies at Michael’s.
Allow the cake to cool completely. Once it is cool, use a bread knife to cut off the rounded top of your cake. This will level off the cake and make it even. Do this to both layers of your cake.
Place one layer of cake with the cut portion facing up on your tray or cake stand. Place a generous layer of frosting on top, which will become the filling or frosting between the two layers of cake.
Place the second layer of cake, with the cut side down, on top of the frosting you just added. Fill in the gap on the sides with additional frosting, coating the entire side of the coat with a light layer of frosting. Add a light layer of frosting to the top of the cake. Don’t worry if you have crumbs in your frosting at this point. This is just the crumb coat or dirty icing as Buddy from Cake Boss likes to call it.
Your cake should be even and level. Place the cake in the refrigerator and allow the frosting to set. This will slightly harden the frosting and allow you to easily decorate the cake without concern of crumbs ending up in your final design. Don’t reuse the jar of frosting you used for the crumb coat if it has crumbs in it.
Now that you have done the prep work, it is time to have some fun! Cake Boss sent me all these supplies for hosting this Cake Boss Party. Wow! We had so many fun choices for our cakes! You can buy any and all of these supplies at Michael’s and have fun making cakes with your family and friends as well or for your next special occassion.
I never would have thought of hosting a cake decorating party, but I have to tell you that everyone who came had a great time and I would totally do this again….even when it means making 4 two layer cakes and 18 small flower cakes the night before. Which went surprisingly faster than I thought it would. Yay for that!
When you are ready to decorate your cake, remove it from the refrigerator and add another small layer of frosting if you plan to add fondant. This will be the glue to hold the fondant. If you are not working with fondant, add a thick layer of frosting and use your decorating tips to make the cake pretty.
I’m telling you, no one who came had ever worked with fondant before, but thankfully a bunch of us are fans of the TLC Cake Boss show. The one little boy who came had listened to the show VERY well and was able to help everyone know what to do. Awesome sauce!
The boxes of the Cake Boss fondant also have directions, so we were good to go.
Knead your fondant until it is pliable and able to roll out with a rolling pin. You want to roll it thin. The box says 1/8″ thick. I don’t think any of us got it that thin and it works fine. We coated our counter with powdered sugar so the fondant wouldn’t stick.
Roll the fondant onto the rolling pin. Unroll the fondant onto the cake and use a fondant cutter or pizza cutter to trim off the extra. Finally, smooth the fondant into place.
We found the pink fondant was the easiest to work with. Those that used the chocolate fondant had a little more of a tough time getting it not to stick to itself. Not sure what we were doing wrong, but we made it work.
Now you get to have fun coming up with how you want to decorate your cake. One family used the fondant rolled out with the fondant ribbon cutter to cut out wavy ribbons out of fondant. They then rolled those up to make the prettiest flowers! Such creativity. Love it!
J had to give making flowers with frosting a try. He had seen Buddy make them many times and jumped right in to give it a go. He found they were a bit more challenging than he expected, but after 3 attempts he got a flower with which he was happy. Impressive!
Pumpkin had fun using the tip set to create rosettes on our cake.
Every family that came got to decorate their own cake together. Can you tell we had some Packers fans? They used the letter fondant stamp set to stamp the message into the cake then pipe frosting on top to make the message stand out.
Our other friends divided the cake in half so each child got to have half the cake to decorate as they wish. Smart idea to not have fighting. 🙂
This is the cake with the rolled up fondant flowers. I love these flowers!
I’m sure there is a way to make the color of the fondant smooth again after having it in the powdered sugar, but I didn’t want to attempt to figure it out and possibly ruin their cake in the process, so you can see the drips from adding water.
You will want to add water to the fondant before you add a decoration to the overall fondant layer. Just use the water in the location you plan to place a fondant decoration. It makes the smaller decorations stick to the fondant. You could also use a small bit of frosting.
Cake Boss also sent me this adorable flower cake pan. I made an individual cake for each person who came, so that everyone got to decorate something that was just theirs. It was fun to see how many different ideas and ways people could decorate these little cakes.
Cuteness! The flower texture in the fondant is a fondant rolling pin with a flower pattern.
AND…since I always keep it real. When everyone leaves, this is what your counter will look like. The floor will have a nice slick coating of powered sugar and the table may be sticky for days. No matter at all. It was such a fun time that it made it all worth it. Now I just need to reorganize and purge my kitchen so I have room to fit all of the amazing cake decorating tools that Cake Boss sent. I think that will be a project for my 2 weeks off at Christmas.
Have you ever worked with fondant? What is your favorite cake decorating tool? Mine was the set of decorating tips we got. I’ve always wanted to learn how to use them and I sure did at our party. Fun!
More great ideas for you:
It looks like everyone had a blast! And each cake is unique!
We sure did have tons of fun! Have you tried your hand at fondant?
Oh this looks so fun!! I love decorating cakes but haven’t tried any of the Cake Boss supplies yet…but I think I might need to change that!
I think you will need to change that Ashley! They work really well and we had so much fun. What is your favorite cake decorating tool?
How fun are these cakes! I want to have a cake party now!
How fun! I have never worked with fondant before.
I hadn’t either. It isn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. You should give it a try. 🙂
Great tips- I am halfway through making a Batman cake for my son’s 5th birthday so thank you for sharing!
Thanks1 So glad you enjoyed them. How did your cake turn out? I bet it was great!