Hello all-
This V-Day, I'm doing some mini-cakes for two people. Last year, I used s 4.5'' ring and cut cake circles, but I lost so much cake, I don't want to do that again. (Not to mention, they're a pain in the butt to frost.)
I'd like to use a 4'' round cake pan... would that size be appropriate for two people? I torte my layers to get four layers total in each cake and the layers are usually 1'' high. I don't think it'll be a big difference from last year, but it just looks so small when I cut out a 4'' circle! :) Thanks for your help!
AI would say 4" is definitely enough for two people! But most would buy a cake more as a gesture and to have a small slice to share with the loved one, nor to stuff themselves. Why don't you go for 2 layers only? Or make cupcakes with you could pack in 2s?
Thanks for the help, everyone. I've seen mini-cakes for two advertised that are 4'' so I think I'll be ok. The 4.5'' ring last year was just such a nice size, but in the end I think it was bigger than needed. I just didn't want the size to be a shock since I do have some repeat customers from last year. Here's what it looked like. The cake board it's on was 6''.
A 3" cake at 3" high is roughly the equivalent of 2 cupcakes in the amount of batter/cake. So ideal for 2. You can use baked bean tins or sweetened condensed milk tins.
If you were doing mini cakes displayed on a cupcake tower, then this is a good size to go for. And it would be presumed as a sharing serve between 2. And they fit perfectly in a 4x4" cake box cube.
But as a celebration cake on its own, it may look too small, so I would offer 4" cakes. Yes they are a pain to decorate so small, particularly with fondant.
I just joined MyCakeSchool.com in December when I received a subscription from my BFF. The suggested technique for your mini cakes is actually a freebie that I found when I opened my subscription:
http://www.mycakeschool.com/blog/happy-year2015-tutorial/
Her Happy New Year 2015 cake has a horizontal 2D buttercream piping technique that should work beautifully with 4" mini cakes. I would forego the crumb coat and just be generous with the 2D piping and you could cover a cake in a flash. You could place little cinnamon hearts in each of the "seams" in the back and make that part of the design. You could also pipe red candy melt hearts to stick in the top, or use a candy mold similar to this one:
http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=5325ACAE-1E0B-C910-EA830C10A313D992&killnav=1
Perfect! That technique will save me a lot of time and annoyance lol Thanks all!!! And I love MyCakeSchool... I'm a member there as well, I just haven't been there for a while :)
I also make mini-cakes, in 3" and 4" sizes - and I list the 3" cake as 2 servings, and the 4" cake as 4 servings. I use either cake rings (I get mine from BakeDeco.com) or small cake pans (from Lloyd Pans). I also tried the stamp-the-rounds-out-of-a-sheet thing, and the wasted cake scraps just about sent me around the bend. (On the plus side, the turkeys ate *very* well this last Christmas!)
These are 3" mini cakes for a wedding/bridal shower tasting:
I haven't tried to decorate these with fondant - they are so small! Usually I use my Qwik Icer tip to pipe the buttercream on the non-crumb-coated cake, smush the piping on with a warm off-set spatula, then run a warm scraper around the outside to smooth it off. The Qwik Icer tip makes it go really fast!
I did 120 of the 3" cakes for a holiday party last month (two flavors, individually boxed), and they were very popular. I used 4" boxes from PaperMart.com. And yeah, by the end of 120 of these babies, I was filling & frosting them in less than 5 minutes each.
I'm sure I'll be doing a least a couple of these for Valentine's Day, so I'll be trying that 2D horizontal piping next time!
Yes @BakerBlackCat, thanks for posting your photos and info. The little cakes are cute!
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