Monday, June 25, 2012

Beer Mug Birthday Cake

First of all please let me apologize for the huge gap between posts, for awhile I have been thinking about writing a post letting you all know I was going to have a month off from blogging. Well I though about it, I procrastinated, I spent a bunch of time looking at living rooms on pinterest, and procrastinated some more. With all my time wasting almost a month has passed anyway, so now I am back and all my time pinning lead to me buying a gorgeous new sofa so it wasn't a total loss.

So this first cake isn't a beer mug cake, clearly. It is the skydive cake I made for my Dad's last Birthday, to go with the skydive we got him as his present. There's still some debate whether it is a nice or nasty gift. Turns out I may have got my habit of putting things off from my Dad, one year on he finally booked his dive. On his birthday he jumped out of a plane!!

That's my Dad way up there. In all the excitement I missed out on some shots of the landing but you get the idea.
Pretty sure after the thrill of jumping out of a plane from 14000 feet a person deserves/ needs a nice big beer or in my Dad's case a giant mug of beer cake. 
My ideas for a beer tasting themed party were replaced by the skydive, but the beer cake was still a huge hit.
I took cake pictures super early in the morning because we had to leave to get to the skydive office. The early photos didn't work out so well, but I did get these few after Dad cut the cake. The inside of the beer mug was 4 layers of chocolate mud cake filled and covered with dark chocolate ganache. To get a little more height for the foamy head of the beer I added a thick layer of vanilla buttercream and covered the whole cake with fondant.
Happy Birthday Dad!

I've had a number of people asking questions about how to make this cake so rather than emailing you all personally I thought I'd add a few notes:
  • The shape of the handle was out of light grey fondant, I inserted a pop-stick into each end of the handle to help support the weight when inserted in the cake. The handle was made a few days before so it would dry hard.
  • For the board, roll out brown fondant to cover the entire board. I used a ruler the back of a knife to score in the wood and grain and let the fondant dry out before painting it with a mix of brown food colour and vodka. The Vodka thins the colouring and evaporates faster than water to stop the fondant from getting too sticky.
  • I cake itself was made from two 6 inch chocolate mud cakes, with each cake split in two to give me four layers. 
  • The cake was covered and filled with dark chocolate ganache. 
  • Because the cake was quite tall, I didn't cover the whole cake with fondant as I usually would. Instead I wrapped the beer coloured fondant around the outside of the cake and then smoothed the join. The white fondant beer head shape was cut separately then draped over the top. 
  • To attach the handle to the cake I put 2 small cuts into the cake fondant where the pop sticks would go in so it wouldn't indent too much. I brushed a tiny bit of water on the parts of the handle that would sit against the cake and then pressed it in while the cake fondant was still soft.
  • The lines of colour on the sides were painted on with food colouring thinned down with a tiny bit of vodka, a mix of brown and yellow. 
I hope this helps a little. Leave a comment if there are any other questions I can answer.

17 comments:

  1. Wow they look amazing and thats one tall cake for the beer mug cake. I'm so jealous of your tallent.

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  2. Wow these are both amazing cakes! I love the skydiver, he looks so realistic! :-)

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  3. Hello!
    I love your cakes :)

    can you tell how did you cover the mug cake? Because it's so tall, i guess you can´t roll the fondant and cover it like a "normal" cake.
    How do you stop the fondant from "sliding" off the cake.
    Thank you so much. It's actually my dad's birthday tomorrow and I was hopping to make this for him.

    Marisa Eugenio (Portugal) - marisa-eugenio@hotmail.com

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  4. Hello, I was just wondering how you attached the handle for the cup to the cake? Did you place any dowels throughout the cake for support, as the cake must have been heavy with so many layers? What size cake pan did you use and how many layers/how thick were they each? How did you make the lines of different colours on the fondant to give that 3D appearance to the cup. I know its a lot of questions, but I'd really appreciate it if you could please reply to me at matthew.2496@hotmail.com. THANK YOU!

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  5. I was wondering how you applied the fondant? Did you do it in sections? And did you just stick the handle into the cake once it was covered in fondant, did it hold well? Also how did you get that wooden look to the board of the cake? please reply to me at matthew.2496@hotmail.com. Thanks once again!

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  6. Hi there,
    I was wondering if you can let me know how you attached the handle to the fondant, i'm about to do a cake like this and thats the bit i'm stumped on.
    Your cakes look amazing!
    Happy baking
    clairepage82@gmail.com

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  7. Hi there,
    I have all the same quetstions as the above people. I want to make this for my dad's 50th birthday in March. Can you post on here the answers to the questions above or email me at aoreilly@abl.com.au it would be greatly appreciated..!! Im most interested in how you painted the glass.
    thanks
    Amy

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    Replies
    1. Hi Amy
      I've added a bit to the end of the post with some notes on how I made this cake. Let me know if you have any other questions.

      I hope it all goes well.
      Kara

      Delete
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