One of the most easily impressive cake designs are shaped cakes. They can be full of imperfections, but the shock value of a shaped cake can brush them under the rug. I have made a fair amount of shaped cakes, and from a professional standpoint, they are very poor quality, yet they are still impressive.
I will relay my top tips to making a successful shaped cake, hopefully you will be able to impress your friends with these tips!
1. Google
This may sound like a cop out, but whenever I decide what kind of cake I want to make, I always Google images it. This is always my first step because it helps me figure out the design and finding the best way to make what I want. I usually end up combining a bunch of different designs that I like to make my own design.
2. Diagrams
The Formula 1, and M1 Tank cakes are great examples of when I had to make diagrams. These cakes were custom made for people in my life, and naturally I didn’t know too much about these things before I made the cakes. For the Formula 1 cake, I actually found a diagram of an F1 car complete with real measurements, and I simplified it and converted it to a possible cake shape. But for some cakes, like the Gumby or Minion, this isn’t necessary. For Gumby I have a poster sized printer, and I just printed out an outline of him and then cut the cake around him. Every cake is unique, and you have to be resourceful.
3. Planning
This is the most important step, none of these cakes happen spontaneously. Once you have your diagram or your design, you can start figuring out the size and how you will construct your cake. The size depends on two factors: how many people you’re feeding, how difficult the design is. It’s easier to make a complicated cake bigger, because small details can be very difficult to fine-tune. Once you figure out the best size for your cake, you have to figure out what type of pan/pans to bake it in. This is the most difficult part, I measure all my cake pans and scale up my diagrams to make sure that I will have enough cake in the right size for me to construct my shape.
4. Assembly
After you’ve planned out and baked your cake, all that’s left is to assemble and then decorate. If you made a good plan, you can basically just cut the baked cake(s) and stack them to make your shape (with buttercream between the layers of course, because it’s the glue in baking). Remember that this doesn’t have to be perfect, and that your actual cake will not measure perfectly like you planned, because it is still cake. Improvise when you need to, and when you’re finished constructing, cover with buttercream and chill for a while so that it will be more sturdy for when you decorate.
5. Decorating
Decorating is highly dependent on what kind of cake you’re making. For the F1 cake, the more decorations I added, the better it looked. For the Gumby cake, there’s almost no decoration. You should have most of it planned out already, but don’t be afraid to play around, you can always take something off if it doesn’t look good. The key to decorating is knowing when to stop, nobody wants a cake covered with crap.
6. Be Accepting
I’m not a perfectionist, but I can get upset if my cake doesn’t turn out the way I envisioned. Because I’m not a professional, I very rarely end up with the cake I thought I would. When finished, instead of beating yourself up about the things that are different between your vision and the end result, just say “Good enough” and move on, your family and friends will love it anyway!
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