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[..lay a little egg for me]

Does anyone have experience in piping shapes with white chocolate? And cake decorating in general. I know there are some ace cake-decorators on the forum. This is my problem:

 

Last year I went up several points in DS's estimation by making him a volcano cake, which looked impressive but required little skill in terms of cake decorating. This year he is expecting a similar creative effort.

 

As he is bonkers about soccer, I had decided to make a large rectangular cake covered in green icing (fondant I thought) and marked out as a football pitch. I had a brainwave (so I thought) and bought a football subbuteo-type game to get hold of some footballer figures and goals that I thought could be used to decorate the cake and have play value afterwards. However, here is the problem. I bought said games online and when they came they turned out much bigger than I was expecting, so I would need to make a huge cake or think again. I don't want to think again having paid out for the footballing game. The main problem, really, is the size of the goals which are about the width of my largest tin. So, I was thinking...perhaps I could make some smaller goals out of melted white chocolate, piped into a net shape. I have never piped anything either icing or chocolate so some tips on how to execute this would be welcome. I think the oversized soccer players would look OK.

 

Also, I have been having second thoughts about getting the green icing to look OK. I have used fondant icing for my Xmas cakes for several years but that is only a relatively small area whereas this is going to be huge (approx 12" x 18"). I am thinking sugar overload! Could I use another type of icing and make it look more grass like? Perhaps piping strips of icing in tight rows? Any ideas?

 

Last, to get the size cake I need, I was going to use two tins that are 9 x 12" and put the two cakes side by side. If I use the weigh eggs first sponge cake approach, how many eggs will I need?

[Lydia]

Wow lots of questions

 

Ok I'm guessing you're thinking of something along these lines?

 

 

Assuming that's the case I would pipe with royal icing rather than white chocolate simply because it's easier and you can lift it off more easily if it goes wrong. Royal icing is really easy to make and you can use either proper egg whites or buy egg albumen from cake shops (it depends how far you take the health and safety with raw eggs thing). I strongly suspect the bought albumen comes from battery eggs but I don't know. Or you can buy royal icing ready make but it tastes more synthetic in my opinion.

 

For the cake size it really depends on how many you want it to feed and whether you are making sponge or fruit. I'm guessing you're going for sponge as it is for kids. There are lots of portion guides on the web but one 9 x 12 sponge would feed around 35-40 people I would say, so two will feed an army! If your son is having a party it is possible there may be more kids to feed (in which case very good luck!!). You might struggle to find a board big enough to support 2 9 x 12" cakes though.

 

Right, green icing. Ready to roll sugarpaste is really the best thing to use (also known as fondant sometimes) because it's pliable and quite forgiving. You can buy ready made green ready to roll icing from cake shops and this is much easier to use. They normally do 2 shades so you can get a colour texture if you want. If you are doing 2 cakes it will be a lot of sugar I'm afraid but the kids will only have a small piece and you could always take off the icing before serving.

 

If you want to make it look more like grass you could use a clean (pref new) nailbrush to indent the icing when it is soft.

 

I'm afraid I can't answer the spong mixture question as I am rather rubbish at really large sponges and anything I say will turn out soggy (I'm good at fruit cakes though ).

 

Hope that helps. Good luck!

[..lay a little egg for me]

Thanks Lydia

 

I couldn't find green fondant icing in the supermarket just pink . However, I have green food colouring and fondant icing sugar, which is icing sugar plus glucose powder and it is what I used for my Xmas cakes. Any idea what quantities I should use for a 9 x 12" cake?

 

With the royal icing, if I draw a design on baking parchment, pipe over it with royal icing, can I lift it off in one piece? I was thinking to do a rectangular grid of icing/white choc for the back of the net and then two triangular bits to make each side and then prop them up against each other and "glue" with icing. How easy will the "net" be to handle and get off the baking parchment and how long do I need to leave it to set?

[Lydia]

Hello again

 

Sorry I don't know how much sugar to use as I've always bought ready made. I know it would be a great deal of work to make that much green paste though.

 

A specialist cake shop will stock ready made paste. I googled and found the http://www.tythingsugarcraftcentre.co.uk/about.htmSugarcraft%20Centre%20in%20Worcester who stock it. Don't know if that's near you?

 

Failing that my local shop, http://www.need-a-cake.co.uk/store/productdetails.aspx?productid=192Need%20a%20Cake, does mail order supplies.

 

I would personally pipe directly onto the sugarpaste as royal icing breaks so easily. You can do it separately but it's prone to disaster and I think something like a net would be fiddly to move. You could mark it out on the paste lightly using either an edible pen or tiny pin marks perhaps.

[..lay a little egg for me]

Oh, OK. I wanted the goal to stand up, so should I go back to the white chocolate idea? I can do the pitch markings in royal icing though.

[Snowy]

I think it may be a bit tricky with white chocolate to be honest. It's not easy to melt (or at least that was my experience ) and it went lumpy,plus it wouldn't set rigidly enough to make your nets with. However, I have seen royal icing piped to make nets (I had icing 'baskets' on my wedding cake ). I'll see if I can find some instructions.

[Snowy]

Hm, can't find any decent images, but if you find a recipe for royal icing - it is basically icing sugar and egg white - maybe draw your design on the reverse of greaseproof paper and pipe the icing onto the front. As you said, you would only need 2 triangular sides and a rectangle. Leave to dry, then use some more icing to 'glue' them together. OK, a pic - not very good, but you get the gist:

 

For the pitch, you could use green buttercream and spike it for a rough looking grass pitch

[Charlottechicken]

I've seen a football pitch cake with coconut sprinkled over icing to resemble the grass, dyed with green food colouring.

 

[sunshinesupernova]

I've just coloured a load of ready-made white fondant and it was very easy. Just use a skewer or similar and drag it across the surface. Fold the fondant over and then knead the colour in. Repeat as many times as required to get the colour you want.

 

The coconut for grass texture is a fab idea !

 

For the goals, if they have to be upright, how about using some wooden coffee stirrers and covering them in fondant....?

[..lay a little egg for me]

Hm, can't find any decent images, but if you find a recipe for royal icing - it is basically icing sugar and egg white - maybe draw your design on the reverse of greaseproof paper and pipe the icing onto the front. As you said, you would only need 2 triangular sides and a rectangle. Leave to dry, then use some more icing to 'glue' them together. OK, a pic - not very good, but you get the gist:

 

For the pitch, you could use green buttercream and spike it for a rough looking grass pitch

 

Thanks Snowy. I have done just that only using white chocolate after all. I thought I would try the white chocolate to see if it worked and then if it fails I can make extra royal icing when I come to make up the icing for doing the white lines on the pitch and try that. The white choc melted fine but I did use white choc from the baking sundries shelf in the supermarket so perhaps it is formulated for such use. Anyway, I piped the grid onto baking parchment and then put it in the freezer. It peeled off the parchment nicely so as long as it doesn't melt when I assemble the goal it should work

 

I am intending to use the green buttercream idea too.

 

Thanks for the coconut idea sunshine-supernova, unfortunately DS hates coconut with a passion, which is a great shame cos I think it would have looked really good.

 

I made the cakes for the base today and had a bit of a disaster . The oven shelf turned out not to have been put in properly - my fault - and was raised at the front so was at an angle, so guess what...I've got two severely sloping cakes I am going to have to trim them a lot to get the pitch level. Oh bother, bother, bother!

[..lay a little egg for me]

Just a note to say thanks for all your help on this. It worked well and DS was suitably impressed, so Mum has got lots of brownie points

 

I've posted a couple of pics on facebook.

Here.

[fluffyknickers]

Love it looks brilliant.

[chickencam]

Great cake

[Lydia]

Like it! Well done!

[sunshinesupernova]

super !