I saw this idea done on cookies over on the Woodland Bakery YouTube channel quite some time ago. The video no longer exists so I can't link it but check out Gretchen over there! She did these cookies and I thought how PERFECT on a cake. She did this around Valentines Day (you will understand why later) and so it has been that long since I have wanted to recreate these adorable cookies with cake. I also knew, I HAD to recreate this with one niece in particular, Jenna. She is a summer girl for certain! She is such a delightful young woman and I just knew this project was right up her alley.
I love cooking with my nieces, from the little ones to grown ones! More than the cooking is spending time with them, finding out what is going on in their lives, and learning more about who they are becoming. It is so exciting, I am proud of them all (and my nephews too). So when my niece told me she had classes winding down, and had time after clinicals, I couldn't wait to see her OR hang out with her. We have made a few dates before and then had to cancel so it was about time we got it together!
For this cake, you will need 2 heart shaped pans. If you only have one, just bake the first cake, let it cool and then bake the second cake. Heck I suppose if you are a gifted "cutter" you could do 2, 9x13 cakes and cut them into heart shapes. You can use a cake mix or a from scratch cake, it makes no difference. Just end up with 2 heart shaped cakes. I used a yellow cake mix, as I thought it would simulate a nice "tan"! HOWEVER, we ended up frosting it all in a flesh tone because we didn't want part of the cake left unfrosted. This post is going to give you the method, my butter cream recipe, and the food coloring formula we found for flesh colored icing (Caucasian). Because the answer is, YES, I forgot to pick up flesh colored food coloring. Sue me.
I am giving you the directions for THIS cake. How we did it, the colors we used. You can change these colors, you can just frost it using a knife instead of piping bags, I mean you know how this goes, the choices are yours, I can only tell you how we did ours!
Vanilla Butter cream Icing
2 sticks (1 cup) butter, at room temp
1lb powdered sugar (sifted)
2-4 tbsp heavy cream (milk or half and half will work in a pinch)
2 tsp vanilla extract
Beat butter for 3-5 minutes alone. Add vanilla. Then add sifted sugar, mix until combined. It will likely be a bit crumbly. Add in heavy cream, start with 1 or 2 tbsp. Continue to beat. I used 4, but you may choose to use more or less. Just use enough to get to the consistency you need for piping or icing.
Here is how to divide the icing up. Divide into separate bowls as follows:
1/4 flesh colored (recipe below)
1/2 white
1/4 yellow (as bright or light as you choose)
To get flesh colored icing, in a SEPARATE BOWL add together 8 drops of yellow, 6 drops of red, and 2 drops of green, food coloring. DO NOT mix it in the icing. Add a few drops at a time to your bowl of white icing, until you get the color you want. It worked perfectly for us! We just googled it and came up with it on Yahoo Answers!
For this cake you will need:
2 heart shaped cakes
Piping bags
tips (star tip any size and a writing tip to do the tie and outline)
offset spatula
knife
large cookie sheet, board or platter it will fit on.
1 batch of butter cream icing
Place your cakes on your large cookie sheet or whatever you are using to build the cake on. The top heart will be upside down and the bottom cake will also be upside down. Drop the point that is fitting into the top heart, between the 2 sides. Wow, this instruction isn't going well. Point the up or the down to the side of the center..........yea, that is about as much sense as I feel this is making so let me just give you a photo. This is after it had been trimmed a bit to fit together, and icing in flesh colored icing! So once you get it trimmed and fit together, frost it. You do not want to use the flesh colored icing where you are putting the bikini, it will just be to much icing and you left only enough to cover the top and sides of the NAKED parts of the cake! So to speak........ OMGOSH, we iced it all mostly, DO NOT DO WHAT WE DID. LOL Really though just frost where the "skin" would be showing. Use a cup of hot water if needed to smooth it out as nicely as you can. Don't forget the SIDES! Nobody wants cellulite on their own butt OR on their cake! Sorry this is sideways.
Next, using a toothpick or skewer, map out your bikini. Ours, obviously was more of a granny panty style bathing suit, but you do what you want. It is so much easier to map it out, that way there is no guessing. The bottom of the top heart is obviously the "bikini top" and the bottom of the bottom heart is the "bikini bottom" is that all politically correct enough because there are MUCH easier words I COULD use. HA!
Now, place your white icing in a piping bag fitted with a plain round writing tip. Use it to outline the bikini. You MAY need to thin that icing out a WEE bit, but you may not. Just get a nice outline so all the rest is mindless "filling in". Also do your ties at this point if you are doing the "ties around the neck" style.
Now switch that tip out for your star tip (white frosting). Any size star tip will work. Begin filling in all of those outlines. It is a little tedious, but not bad and the more you do it the faster it goes! You can also just do this part with a plain spatula and frost it flat. I am just obsessed with piping bags. I remember when my mom used to decorate cakes, there was no airbrushes, or edible computer transfers, she used a star tip and "colored" everything in! When you are done you will have something that looks like.....
Now, rinse that star tip out and put it unto a piping bag of your yellow frosting. Time for the POLKA DOTS!! Add them in as big or small and as few or many as you like! Be creative!
When you are done you can always go back in and add more, or fill in more if you need to. Here is "our" finished product, being proudly displayed by Jenna herself!!
So there you have it, the perfect cake for a summer girl. I think making miniature cakes, and letting little girls decorate them for a birthday party would be a blast. Of course, as long as I don't have to clean up. Make this cake and post me your photos on Facebook or Twitter!!
PS. If you are lost and this makes no sense and you can't figure it out from the photos......I am sorry, I have no excuses, but I trust even if my words aren't sensible, you can figure it out. Granny panties to string bikini's...........CHEERS!
Here is how to divide the icing up. Divide into separate bowls as follows:
1/4 flesh colored (recipe below)
1/2 white
1/4 yellow (as bright or light as you choose)
To get flesh colored icing, in a SEPARATE BOWL add together 8 drops of yellow, 6 drops of red, and 2 drops of green, food coloring. DO NOT mix it in the icing. Add a few drops at a time to your bowl of white icing, until you get the color you want. It worked perfectly for us! We just googled it and came up with it on Yahoo Answers!
For this cake you will need:
2 heart shaped cakes
Piping bags
tips (star tip any size and a writing tip to do the tie and outline)
offset spatula
knife
large cookie sheet, board or platter it will fit on.
1 batch of butter cream icing
Place your cakes on your large cookie sheet or whatever you are using to build the cake on. The top heart will be upside down and the bottom cake will also be upside down. Drop the point that is fitting into the top heart, between the 2 sides. Wow, this instruction isn't going well. Point the up or the down to the side of the center..........yea, that is about as much sense as I feel this is making so let me just give you a photo. This is after it had been trimmed a bit to fit together, and icing in flesh colored icing! So once you get it trimmed and fit together, frost it. You do not want to use the flesh colored icing where you are putting the bikini, it will just be to much icing and you left only enough to cover the top and sides of the NAKED parts of the cake! So to speak........ OMGOSH, we iced it all mostly, DO NOT DO WHAT WE DID. LOL Really though just frost where the "skin" would be showing. Use a cup of hot water if needed to smooth it out as nicely as you can. Don't forget the SIDES! Nobody wants cellulite on their own butt OR on their cake! Sorry this is sideways.
Next, using a toothpick or skewer, map out your bikini. Ours, obviously was more of a granny panty style bathing suit, but you do what you want. It is so much easier to map it out, that way there is no guessing. The bottom of the top heart is obviously the "bikini top" and the bottom of the bottom heart is the "bikini bottom" is that all politically correct enough because there are MUCH easier words I COULD use. HA!
Now, place your white icing in a piping bag fitted with a plain round writing tip. Use it to outline the bikini. You MAY need to thin that icing out a WEE bit, but you may not. Just get a nice outline so all the rest is mindless "filling in". Also do your ties at this point if you are doing the "ties around the neck" style.
Now switch that tip out for your star tip (white frosting). Any size star tip will work. Begin filling in all of those outlines. It is a little tedious, but not bad and the more you do it the faster it goes! You can also just do this part with a plain spatula and frost it flat. I am just obsessed with piping bags. I remember when my mom used to decorate cakes, there was no airbrushes, or edible computer transfers, she used a star tip and "colored" everything in! When you are done you will have something that looks like.....
Now, rinse that star tip out and put it unto a piping bag of your yellow frosting. Time for the POLKA DOTS!! Add them in as big or small and as few or many as you like! Be creative!
When you are done you can always go back in and add more, or fill in more if you need to. Here is "our" finished product, being proudly displayed by Jenna herself!!
So there you have it, the perfect cake for a summer girl. I think making miniature cakes, and letting little girls decorate them for a birthday party would be a blast. Of course, as long as I don't have to clean up. Make this cake and post me your photos on Facebook or Twitter!!
Your "flipflop thwackin"chefwannabe
PS. If you are lost and this makes no sense and you can't figure it out from the photos......I am sorry, I have no excuses, but I trust even if my words aren't sensible, you can figure it out. Granny panties to string bikini's...........CHEERS!
Wilton used to make (don't know if they still do) a #17 triple tip. It pipes 3 stars at a time, in a triangle shape, and the next row you just twist the tip 90 degrees, and do the next row. It's a lot faster than piping with just one tip.
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