Hi there everyone!

I'm hoping somebody will be able to help me out with this, I'm looking to make a square cake which will be a gift box / present style.

I'd like to do this in fondant in either of these two styles -

a box with a lid
wrapped like a present (so it looks like paper)

then I will decorate with ribbons & bows. I am ok with this part though!

I have seen lots of pictures of cakes with the lid standing up but I want mine flat on the cake and am just looking for some techniques on how to do this and get a nice finish.

I would appreciate any help/tips/info/links to tutorials and how to's!

Thank you so much in advance!

Hi, I am just a hobbiest, but I made a "present cake" last october. The biggest thing I found was that to look like a box the cake needs to be TALL! I had to quickly bake more layers as I realised that just two was not going to look right at all... I covered the tiers as normal, then cut square of the lid colour for each one and just laid it on, smoothed the top and corners, and lightly on the edges and down a little on the sides, then I just used a ruler and an exacto knife (one I only use for cakes) to trim the edges... You have to be careful not to cut through the second layer of fondant (the colour you covered the cake with), but it was not too hard. After that I did the ribbons, and then decorated the sides of the boxes as I wanted too...

Here is mine... http://cakecentral.com/gallery/2212604/blue-and-brown-gift-box-cake

Hope this helps!

Annabel

Oh, also, for ones that are supposed to look like wrapped presents, the ones I like the best have either extra fondant "triangles" to look like the sides where the wrapping paper is folded over and taped, or lines "pressed" in to make it look like this. I'm not describing this well, so if I can find a pic of an example I'll post one...

Hi, will this help?


http://inspiredbymichelleblog.com/2011/02/08/gift-or-present-cakes-how-to-do-the-lids/

Richard Festen at Baking Arts has a DVD with what you want.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7518775@N04/5063738130/in/photostream

http://www.bakingarts.net/modeling-chocolate-dvds.html

He uses modeling chocolate.

Thank you for the replies everyone, those urls have been really helpful!

I'm going to go for the box with a lid look.

I remembered seeing a video somewhere with a how to on this kind of box and last night it came to me that it was for a shoe box!

Here is the url in case anybody else comes across this post in future and may find it useful.

I'm baking the cake today so I will post pics and my experience here in a couple of days when I am done with it if anyone is interested how it turns out!

Good luck with the cake, I can't wait to see your pics! I peeked at your other cakes, and I especially like the Harry Potter one, and I can't believe the purse was your first real project! You will have no problem with the gift box cake Good luck!

Hi Annie,

I have just uploaded a picture of my finished cake if you want to have a look! It was meant to be collected Friday but it's being picked up in the morning so I am a little nervous now waiting to see if it meets expectations!

Thank you everyone for the help, it's been good to make, if the colour palette was up to me I'd probably have made one that was a lot more out there but it'll be fun to try another in future!

Great job - the thistle looks really neat. Making it a box of shortbread is such an original idea! Maybe next time I have to do a box I'll try an open-lid one!