To decorate a pre iced cake for dds 16th and refuse to pay £80 for a themed cake?!

[Dewdrops1]

So it’s dd’s 16th birthday and quotes on birthday cakes coming in at £80 or there about 😳 completely appreciate time and cost involved but it’s just out of my price range (and I’ve left it too late!)

So…..do you think I’d be able to decorate a pre iced shop cake and make it look acceptable (I’m not very good at baking so unable to make own!)?

any ideas on how I’d go about doing this in 2 days and pass it off as a ‘professional’ looking cake😂 was thinking black/gold decoration and possibly getting two different size cakes to put on top of each other, no idea how I’d go about doing that mind!

Honest opinions greatly appreciated.

No - a custom cake for £80 is cheap whether or not you can afford it.

Cheap is not an absolute term - it’s relative to the item in question.

I've done this before with the Waitrose entertaining white icing cake. You can also order different cake toppers off eBay.

Go to Costco.
Brilliant cakes..much cheaper.
Or Asda. They can add an edible photo onto a cake.

@Dewdrops1 this one is available in 3 days

I reckon you want one of these three m and s cake:

https://www.ocado.com/products/m-s-extremely-chocolatey-party-cake-512174011

https://www.ocado.com/products/m-s-milk-dark-white-chocolate-sponge-cake-524992011

https://www.ocado.com/products/m-s-raspberry-ripple-cake-553207011

https://www.ocado.com/products/m-s-extremely-chocolatey-chocolate-brownie-cake-562130011

https://www.ocado.com/products/m-s-rainbow-sponge-layer-cake-524983011

Or

https://www.ocado.com/products/m-s-milk-chocolate-party-cake-524990011

They all weigh similar amounts but the serving recommendations differ wildly, and I think they'd all serve 15 at least.

Then a gold topper, possibly some edible gold spray + maltesers/lindor or a load of strawberries (at the very last minute so they don't dye the icing) and I reckon you'll be all sorted.

Sorry pressed send too quickly!

3 days www.marksandspencer.com/rainbow-layers-cake-serves-12-/p/ckp60095316#intid=pid_pg1pip45g2r3c2__prodflag_Collect%20in%203%20daysprodflag_submsg-In%20Store%20Collection

That is adorable! Is the base cake m and s?

It was mainly my DD - she was very particular about what she wanted and she loves cats!
The base cake was Morrisons but all (most?) supermarkets do a standard sprinkle cake.
my.morrisons.com/foodtoorder/product/morrisons-rainbow-celebration-cake/111865306

Came on to say this, Tesco etc do nice drip cakes etc I would get one of these and buy a personalised topper to put on it

If you do want to decorate a shop cake, an easy way to make it looks nice is to spread a thin layer of icing all over, doesn’t matter if it’s neat, and then stick chocolate fingers all around the sides all sticking up like a fence and pile berries all over the top, finished with a dusting of icing sugar. Really pretty and none of the buttercream is visible once you’ve finished so you basically can’t mess it up.

Decorate it with chocolates

You can get a favourite photo made as a cake topper, simply freeze for 5 mins and put it on a prebought cake. To jazz up the taste you can melt 2 choc oranges to pour over, it will dribble down and cover the sides of cale too. Once hard put frozen topper on, it sticks as it quickly thaws

Do you know anyone with a Costco membership? They do personalised cakes for £16.49 and they are massive! They need 48 hours notice and you just pop in and collect. They also have some available in the shop, but not personalised ones and no guarantee on the designs - but they are such a good option! You can see their designs on the website without being a member and you get a choice of sponges and fillings!

The only cakes I've ever made have been supermarket ones with animals / figurines / etc plonked on top and I have to say they all looked pretty decent! The astronaut cake I turned from a purple unicorn Tesco one into the moon, I just bought a big tub of vanilla frosting and covered the cake while spinning it, adding dabs of food colouring while I was spreading it on. I'm not a baker either.

Supermarkets, eg Waitrose, Sainsburys have professionally decorated cakes that you can buy off the shelf, much cheaper obviously than having a cake made.

That will look good once you get nice candles etc, you can buy sugar flowers, other than that your own DIY attempts are likely to be dire, since decorating much harder than baking.

I actually think decorating cakes is harder than baking them! I can bake, my cakes taste great but they look terrible!!

"Cakes | Birthday Cakes | M&S" https://www.marksandspencer.com/l/food-to-order/cakes

They do some lovely personalised ones.

Their cakes are lovely

Patisserie Valerie do some cakes to order relatively quickly too! Some are reasonable and others as expensive as you've been quoted

Get on Google images and check out designs. Fb also has some great cake groups that will have loads of pics. Then Hobbycraft (if there is one near you) and Amazon (probably more so) will he your friend here. You'll find all sorts of cake toppers etc.
Good luck!

I make cakes as a hobby, and I think gold and black could be quite tricky if you are trying to actually ice it. It should be fine though if you just put balls/ macarons/ flowers/ topper and ribbon. Good luck

https://www.marksandspencer.com/l/food-to-order/cakes

https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/shop/browse/entertaining/cakes_and_biscuits/birthday_cakes

I am not sure they would arrive in time, but something like this which wraps around any colour cake might be quite easy.

deffo go DIY! Cakes can be such a waste of money :(

Edible cake toppers - can have photos etc on
of her

personalised name and age toppers
all
on Etsy or local Facebook groups and only a couple of pounds each

we did a Morrisons cake with big silver glitter balls from Amazon and edible large cake topper personalised by a local lady - cost around £30 all in and it was her best cake ever!

Thanks everyone, some inspirational posts! What do you think about this cake, a gold topper, gold ribbon and strawberries going around the top?