The Birthday Cakes

This is the cake long planned for. Jeriel actually picked this cake when he was flipping through my '50 Easy Party Cakes', er hm...... personally signed by the world renowned sugarpaste artist, Ms Debbie Brown. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Tractor themed birthday party was hard to plan. It was really not easy to find tractor related party stuff, hence the addition of another side theme, which is the Barnyard theme.

The cake was an 8 inch square Devil's Food Cake.The cake was cut into two equal portions. One part was used for the base of the tractor. The other half was cut into half again. Took a piece away for the trailer. The other piece was then trimmed in a slope and sandwiched with buttercream to the base of the tractor. All the cakes were crumb-coated with a thin layer of buttercream (recipe below). The rest was just about covering with fondant and some figure modeling with fondant as well.

Here are the animal figurines:




And here are the cupcakes with self-made barnyard animal picks. Let me share with you the buttercream I used for crumb-coating the tractor cake as well as for piping the grass on to the cupcakes.

Buttercream Icing

Ingredients:
600g icing sugar, sifted
640g Krimwell or Crisco or other shortening
250g butter
60g milk
Flavouring (e.g. lemon, strawberry, vanilla)

Method:
Combine shortening and butter in mixing bowl. Cream on medium-high speed untill there are no lumps of fat. Reduce speed to slow and add in icing sugar gradually. Increase speed to high and continue to beat until light and creamy. Add in milk and flavouring. Beat at medium speed to incorporate well into the icing.

Notes:

1. Consistency is medium in air-conditioned room. Icing will be soft at room temperature (hot climate or during summer). More suitable for frosting.
2. This icing is not advisable for piping flowers or decorations that need to stay firm and upright at all times. To stiffen icing, increase amount of icing sugar and reduce amount of milk.