A long time ago… or last Friday…
In a galaxy far, far away… or maybe down the street…
A girl made a galaxy cake for a very different franchise.
…
This one has something to do with time.
(shrug)
…
I have never seen an episode.
That may make me the worst, but I would have to start at the beginning…and I feel I am a bit far behind to try to catch up at this point.
I am sure it is a fantastic show.
Also, not really the point.
While there may be words on the finished cake that mention something about something or other, the cake itself is completely stand alone. At least in my opinion.
Let’s start with a chocolate iced cake.
No wait, back up. Let’s talk about icing while the cake is still chilling in the refrigerator.
To make my black, I started with a base of chocolate frosting. This means I can use WAY less powdered food color to achieve my final black. It also means that even if there is a little food color taste, it won’t be noticeable in the yummy deep chocolate frosting since it is only going to be the thinnest outer layer on the cake. (I got the recipe from this class on Bluprint. Note: I am not receiving any affiliate income from products or services mentioned in this post.)
I then proceeded to color some white icing with royal blue food color for my blue and regal and electric purples for my violet. I use Americolor food gel.
Before I iced the cake, I needed to create a unified color palette. To do this, I added a little of blue and violet to the black, blue and black to the violet, and violet and black to the blue.
The effect is subtle, but the desaturation of the colors gives the palette a sense of harmony.
Time to decorate!
I removed a small portion of the tip from the piping bags. A #10 icing tip will work too, but I am comfortable using the bags without the tips, especially since there is less to clean.
The cake has a full coat of chocolate icing. I just want to add a very thin skim coat of color to the cake.
This means fewer black tongues!
If I were using a vanilla buttercream, I would have iced the whole cake with a full coat of white first and then colored my white icing with the black for the thin outer layer. (Don’t be surprised, but I learned this technique from a class on Bluprint. Yay for using a technique I learned! For more on my love of learning (and lack of using what I learned), check out my post on sheen dust.)
Enough about that though.
I started piping lines of black all around the cake.
I wanted to have a lot of color dimensions in the icing, so I added dots and streaks of the other colors before I started smoothing my lines.
Once I finished smoothing, I went around and started to add additional dots and streaks of color.
I then repeated this process a few more times, since I am a bit of a perfectionist.
The final time around, I wiped off my scraper every couple of inches to leave much more distinct color patches in the icing.
On the top, I first smoothed the black, then I added my dots of color.
And then I added more color.
Most iced galaxy cakes I have seen stop at this point. The cake looks great the way it is, but when I think of a galaxy, I think of something with more texture and dimension.
My idea was to add a blend of various sprinkles to give the cake a more distinctive look.
To put the sprinkles on the sides of the cake, I cut a piece of parchment paper and rubbed it with shortening.
I didn’t want the whole cake covered with sprinkles, so I just sprinkled some onto the parchment paper. This technique is great for putting a lot of sprinkles up the sides of the cake as well. For the top, I just sprinkled them on where I wanted them.
Using the parchment is great, as I was able to control how the sprinkles were distributed. If an area needed more gold, I could easily add it before trying to put it on the cake, saving myself a headache of trying to use tweezers or my fingers.
I then lifted the parchment and pressed the sprinkles into the cake.
After the cake went back in the fridge for about 30 minutes, I put a fresh piece of parchment on the cake and used a fondant smoother to push the sprinkles flush into the icing. It was still a little sticky, but I liked the additional texture it left.
Definitely a galaxy I would not mind eating.
I mean, visiting.
To complete my order, I did have to add a few more details. I also know that there is something large and blue that is going on the top of the cake, but that was being provided by someone at the party.
Until we meet again…or since we met last time?… this timey wimey stuff is confusing.
😊
–Angie
Now that I am writing about my cake projects, I have to be extra careful to document every step of the decorating process. Turns out it is a lot harder than it should be.
The more I do it, I am sure it will become a habit, so for now, please forgive me if I miss a step now and again. If something is unclear, please ask questions, and I will happily explain in more detail, or find photos to better illustrate the questionable item. Thanks for reading!
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