Under the sea,
Under the sea,
Mermaids are swimming,
Sprinkles are trimming,
The cake that you see!
…
NHL playoffs really mess with my sleep schedule, and I was a little loopy…
So, the making up of new lyrics to old songs began…
Most people do not consider me silly, and I am okay with that.
Occasionally though, when the lack of sleep takes over, the non-sensical Angie stops by.
Don’t worry, she never stays long.
So…
We’ll just move on.
…
Oh, yeah, the reason for the song.
An Under the Sea cake, of course!
It is always fun when I am given a broad theme and no parameters for the cake design.
It is also a pain, as I am terrible at coming up with ideas at first.
I eventually figure it out though.
Sometimes even before I sit down to decorate the cake!
When it comes to baking, I am a planner.
(When it comes to just about everything else, I am still a planner. Don’t get me started on vacation itineraries…)
This is a good thing for baking (and my need for sleep). I don’t start a cake the day before it is getting delivered and stay up until the wee hours of the morning working on it.
When I plan, I get to enjoy several hours of whatever else I feel like doing time. This also means I can take on more than one cake in a week and not freak out over it.
My schedule:
Day 1—Bake
Day 2—Ice
Day 3—Cover with fondant (if needed)
Day 4—Decorate
Day 5—Deliver
If I start working at 9, I am usually finished for the day by lunchtime, giving me time to do things like write blog posts…or watch Hallmark movies.
You know, whichever seems more important at the time. 😉
By the time I got to decorating day for this cake, I had figured out how I wanted to do the background and made the cookies I wanted to add as the final decoration.
This cake is very similar to my Galaxy Cake (which you can check out here).
Before I started icing, I wanted to make sure the blues I planned to use did not clash with the mermaid cookies.
Then I made sure the blues and green I decided to use would be (go together).
Once the colors were coordinated, I made a little test palette to check the colors with the sprinkles I planned to use.
Yay! It all looks great!
Doing the top of the cake was similar to the Galaxy Cake. I just piped icing in rings around the top and added some of the other colors I wanted to blend in.
After I smoothed it, I decided that I did not want the top to be flat, so I gave it some texture and added a few more spots of color.
Now the finished top had high- and low-lights, just like real waves.
To do the sides, instead of the perpendicular piping I did with the Galaxy Cake, I piped lines parallel to the cake board. This allowed me to alternate colors and create a gradient effect.
The result after smoothing was good, but it needed more colors.
The result had subtle green and darker blue areas which I really loved.
Next, I piped a thick border around the cake bottom, so that when I added the sprinkles, they would be dimensional piles, instead of flat to the cake.
I know that there were lots of round sprinkles in there, and I also know that round things roll, but I was sure I could control the sprinkles by slowly adding them with a spoon.
My floor would disagree.
Once I put the cake over some containers to catch the runaways, the sprinkle process was much smoother.
Good thing too, as there were a lot of runaways!
After carefully knocking off the loose sprinkles from the cake, I had a large pile of sprinkles I saved. It was definitely a close call!
To finish up the cake design, I added some seaweed with a #349 leaf tip.
Wording added (which was less painful than this cake), I could relax and spend 30 minutes trying to get the perfect cake and cookie pictures. (For a great tutorial on how to make the mermaid cookies, check out Flour Box Bakery’s blog and video.)
I really liked the cake the way it was, but I let the birthday girl decide if we should add the mermaids to her cake or not.
The technique I used to ice the cake works from fathoms below to galaxies far, far away, so it is a great technique to master.
On to the next adventure!
–Angie
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