First Character Cake - Bob The Builder
Decorating By mickeymouse85 Updated 11 Jun 2006 , 8:24pm by kjgjam22
Hello all. I wanted to let everyone know how my cake turned out this weekend. I was pleased with the results, being my first try. lol I want to thank everyone who sent me tips and hints to help me along. Here is a link to the picture if you'd like to see it. PLEASE...give me some feedback on this...good or bad....as I'm learning and want any kind of input I can get in order to do better in the future!! Thanks again!!!
Your cake looks really good to me!
Did you put on a crumb coat or apply stars directly to the cake? I'm asking because I am learning too, and think I'd prefer to put a crumb coat first and still be able to see and use the shape of the pan for guidelines for the character. (one suggestion has been to crumb coat, then put the clean pan back on the cake to make indentions into the icing, which should work okay.)
Congrats on your beautiful cake. Jan
That's a good idea to crumb coat a character pan - I did a SpongeBob character for my first cake and it turned out great except the stars all fell off when you cut into it. I read to make stars stick you need to first coat with BC - but I thought I can't do that because where can I see the lines and such??? But a glaze or crumbcoat with a glaze or something sounds like the perfect idea!!!
The stars falling off was one reason I originally started trying to figure out a way to crumb coat first. I think a glaze would be great, but haven't been able to find a recipe for one. If we could make a white or clear ganache that would be good, but haven't figured how to do that either.
I used the cottontail bunny pan on Saturday, and made a crumb coat by thinning my choc bc with a little water and light corn syrup, and applied with a brush...worked fine except it didn't set up. It stayed kinda tacky, and occasionally pulled into the new icing like crumbs do.
The idea of regular icing crumb coat and putting the pan back on for the form seems the best one so far...will be trying that on Thursday or Friday of this week. This is like learning many other things, trial and error, practice, practice, practice. Keep up the good work! Jan
Thank you all so much for the kind words and encouragement!! No, I did not use a crumb coat (I haven't even heard of that before 
) I just applied the stars directly on the cake. It was a little tough outlining, as not everything showed up well to follow the exact outline, so I had to guess a little bit. But, I'm excited, and now that I have my first one under my belt, I think I'll feel more confidant on the next project. 
Thanks again all, I appreciate the feedback!!!
A crumb coat is really important on a regular cake, and is just a thin layer of icing applied and let dry slightly before you put on a second, thicker layer of icing. The crumb coat (hopefully) holds all the crumbs in it so they don't show up in your top layer of icing, keeps it clean and clear. On the character cakes it isn't quite so important, except for the problem of the stars falling off when the cake is cut.
When you do the character cake, you can do your outlines in a writing tip, instead of the stars, then fill in with the stars. Have you tried one of the tips with three stars (#2010) in it? Boy, does that help when you are covering a large area, works great!
I just discovered this forum a few days ago, it is great with so much help and information...I've just been going through and reading all of the subjects! Take care and have fun with your cakes. Jan
I'd never heard of a crumb coat before visiting this site yesterday either. I usually don't have too much trouble, except on the sides of the cake with crumbs. I do thin my bc with corn syrup which helps with spreading, also have learned to only go one direction 
OH I see....now I know what a crumb coat is. Thanks alot!! lol
Yes, I did use tip #3 for the outlining...then everything else was in the stars. I do have a 3-star tip, but I didn't use it this time 
(I hadn't practiced with it and I just wanted to try with the regular star tip). I definitely will use it on the next cake that I do for sure.
Your cake looks really good to me!
Did you put on a crumb coat or apply stars directly to the cake? I'm asking because I am learning too, and think I'd prefer to put a crumb coat first and still be able to see and use the shape of the pan for guidelines for the character. (one suggestion has been to crumb coat, then put the clean pan back on the cake to make indentions into the icing, which should work okay.)
Congrats on your beautiful cake. Jan
Hi, I wouldnt crumb coat the character cakes. You will not see the out line of the cake if you do. I dont crumb coat mine. I just follow the lines as best i can.
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