I am doing a gift box cake with the lid firmly squared up on the cake like a closed box but I am drawing a complete blank as to how to make the lid from one of the 3 layers of cake without carving the other 2 layers smaller so the top layer sticks out around the cake.

On my way to work today I thought I could go get some hershey bars and use icing to glue them around the top edge of the cake then cover with fondant to make a lip like the lid. I don't have any modeling chocolate to do this with and the nearest cake store is too far for how busy I am right now.

Thanks for any ideas! I tried searching but the search is not quite working today for me.

Dia

I have been wondering the same thing. I would also like to know how to "prop" the lid up!

you could cut a strip of fondant or gumpaste and wrap it around the four sides. I have not done this type of cake but I have seen other do it.

I know that people take dowels that are about an inch longer than the bottom cake and put them in the cake. So an inch of the dowel is sticking up (I think they use about 3 dowels). Then the lid itself would have to be on a cardboard, so that the dowels don't go crashing thru the cake. You might want to put buttercream or something on the underside of the lid (where the dowels will hit) to help it hold in place. The only other thing that I can thing to do is make a hole in the cardboard (smaller than the dowel) so that it could catch in the hole, but not go thru the hole and the cake. Hope this makes sense!

Oh yes, and then they take fondant or gumpaste and make fake tissue paper. They crinkle that up and stuff that into the cake so that the dowels are covered. And then they make it look like a little bit is sticking out. (Forgot that tidbit of info).

I finally got the search to work for me and found the following ideas:

1) Use gumpaste/fondant cut about 2 inches larger than the cake size, thickly rolled, and lay over cake and smooth down to make it look like the lid snipping the corners for crisp vertical corner edges

2) Use foamboard or styrofoam and completely cover in fondant/gumpaste sized slightly larger than the cake to sit on top

I think I'm going to do the latter because I can get that done tonight and leave it be while I do other things and know at least that part is done. Plus I know doing that will keep me from screwing up the stencilling I have to do on the cake.

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Try forming your lid over another pan, it will need to be a little bigger than the actual cake so it will fit down on top.