@me_me1 beautiful stall! Are those cupcakes boxed up under the table?
Thank you everyone for compliments on my cake. I have received high praise from the clients, too, on the flavor. So I am happy with it. I had offered one of the flavors I do best IMO, for one of the tiers, and they ended up loving it the best, although initially they wanted all chocolate.
@kstevens - do you have a special pan for the scull cake, or carve it?
@LelekBolek yes, have the Wilton 3D skull pan. So much easier than carving as that is a skill I am still working on.
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Loving the skull cakes. I've got my first skull coming up in Feb so any tips gratefully received!!
Thanks for the lovely comments on my stall! I had two flavours of cake sliced up in the boxes. I normally do mini cuppies but tried cutting up whole cakes this year. I think the mini cuppies are easier though so will go back to that next fair.
@julia1812 yes, it was too much banana in this particular case as the ones I had were quite large. I have two other recipes that call for 3 bananas or 1.5 cups. I should have just used 1.5 cups and I think I would have been fine. In the end I found a recipe that I really like though so it's all good.
@catlharper your cupcakes looks very yummy and I love all your cake plates.
@LelekBolek I'll have to order myself a horseshoe mold....I made one for my newphew's cake last month from gumpaste but the chocolate mold would be so much tastier and easier.
@Laetia I think the banana cake would be every bit as yummy with vanilla SMBC or maybe caramel if you like that.
@Pastrybaglady just for fun I went through my notes and tallied up what I have done to date this year. My first cake of the year was on Jan 31st and since then I have made 50 cakes, 300 cookies, 268 cupcakes and the cake topper that went to Alabama. I guess that is a fair bit. lol
@me_me1 your stall is beautiful and I agree with Julia that your logo is a great one! I am also loving the pink cake that you posted! The sugar skull cake was my third one & each time I used the pan rather than carving. The first time I made one was two years ago and I covered the cake in icing before applying the fondant. I had trouble in getting the fondant on, I think just because the icing was a little on the soft side, & it tore under the chin and at the back. The roses covered up the chin tears and for the back I had to apply a second panel of fondant so used details to cover up the seam. The last two times I used ganache (no icing) on the outside of the cake and found the fondant went on much easier/better. I still find the underside of the chin the tricky part but any flaws can be hidden by the roses (if you are doing a sugar skull). The last two times the only icing I used was to stick the two halves of the cake together so I don't find there is much icing compared to cake. Because of this I supply a "tub" of icing with the cake so if people want more icing they can have it. If you are good at carving you could avoid this by stacking cake layers as per usual & then carving out the skull shape. This way the cake/icing ratio would be better. I think another time I would maybe cover the cake with a 50/50 fondant/modeling chocolate mixture as I think this would help with getting the underside of the chin covered without flaws. The 50/50 mixture seems much more forgiving than straight up fondant. If you are using the pan, I would only fill the back half of the skull to the line, not all the way to the top. It is much deeper than the front half so it takes longer to bake if you fill it past the line. I made that mistake the first time I used it. Does that make sense? I can't think of any other tips at this time but feel free to message me if you have any additional questions. I am no expert but I can let you know what I experienced. The only other thing I would say, and this is personal preference, is that I think they look better with the details painted/drawn on rather than applying fondant details. The details on my second one were all drawn on with edible marker and I think it looks much cleaner than applying fondant details. I'll post pics so you can see a comparison.
Thank you @DormCat . For my first sugar skull I used mainly molds for the details & just sort of made up the overall look. For my second one I found a sugar skull image online that I really liked, sized it & then printed the photos and used them as templates. A lot of it was free hand work though. For the last one (the one posted this week), I again sized the photo to the size of the pan and used the image as my template to cut out the diamond on the top of the skull and the teeth. The rest of the details were done mainly with molds.
I also just noticed that the picture of my first one is not showing up so I'll try posting it again.
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Personally, I like symmetry, and am not a fan of split-side cakes. Although the piece looks gorgeous, i think it would look stunning as separate cakes with full face-image done on each, not two sides "mashed" together. Just me perhaps.
But you all got me thinking - I want to make a scull cake!!! :-)
@me_me1 I have seen that cake online before and really like it! Lucky you to be asked to make one like it! While it's quite detailed, it should be easy in the sense that you can free hand a lot of the details as you don't have to worry about each side being the same. Judging by the shape of the cake I am going to guess that this skull was carved rather than using a 3D pan especially where it has a neck. The Wilton pan is just the skull, no neck, unless it was added with a small round cake? I look forward to seeing what you come up with :-) Good luck!
@DormCat I would suggest a denser cake, any recipe that you know stacks well would work. Each time I made a skull it has been a different recipe, a Mexican chocolate cake, cocoa banana cake and most recently a vanilla bean cake. I have a link to the Mexican chocolate cake (I did not use the glaze) but not the other two.
http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/mexican-chocolate-cake
WOW guys! You are really knocking it out of the park this week! All those skull cakes are amazing! But @me_me1 yours is my favorite! That is just SOOOO elegant!
@kstevens that is just the tip of the iceberg with my cake stands/plates! LOL! I have a true addiction that is only limited by my storage space and my hubby! I keep warning him that once we can get our garage organized there is going to be one storage shelf unit JUST for cake plates/stands! LOL!
Wish I could take credit for that skull cake but that's just what I've been asked to recreate - I'm hoping I do a decent job!
@kstevens - I'm thinking of doing a bit of both as in use the 3D pan but also create a cake neck and just sort of sculpt as required. I'm yet to be told how many people the cake will need to feed so it might have to be part of a bigger cake too yet which could be interesting!
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