Cake makers - any ideas on how best to do a treble clef cake?

[Pennies]

I thought i'd just do a rectangle cake and either paint a treble clef on it, or I'd make one out of sugar paste / flower paste. I'm planning a cake that is A4 sized with the TC covering the cake top to bottom (approx 30cm).

The thing is painting doesn't always look great, esp for large block colours and I'm really stuck for how I'd make one out of sugar / flower paste. For the latter I'm concerned about the following problems:

1. how do I get it from the work surface onto the cake without it breaking?

2. if I do it in bits how best to hide the joins?

3. how best to soften the edges so they don't look too blunt and it doesn't just looked plonked on top of the cake IYKWIM.

All ideas and suggestions very welcome!

the treble clef on the Planet Cake one is definitely made with icing, is it? It couldn't just have been stencilled using black food colouring?

Lovely idea Melody, esp as the recipient loves chocolate and I was going to cover the cake in white cocoform rather than sugarpaste.

I think I'd need to paint it in though layer by layer as I'm worried about what the heat of the melted chocolate might do to the cocoform.

It's going to be a late night tomorrow that's for sure!

Ponders - I think it's a sugarpaste one because if you zoom in on it you can see a very slight edge to it. It's not very clear though. I'm so tempted to just paint it on but I'm not confident I'll ever get the depth of colour and it may look streaky.

Could you make the clef on edible rice paper, transfer the whole lot to the cake, then wet the excess paper to melt it? Then you could use either black icing or dark chocolate cocoaform...

Ooh. I've got some rice paper here but have never used it. How would you do the melting of it etc and how would i get the image onto the rice paper in the first place?

might this work? it would get round the problem of the design stretching when you moved it

"Trace your design, in reverse, on a piece of wax or parchment paper. Next, pipe your various icing colours onto the parchment or wax paper design and carefully place into the freezer on a cookie sheet. Once your icing design has frozen completely, you can easily flip the paper over onto the top of your cake and slowly peel the paper back to transfer the icing to the top of your cake."

What Ponders said except you don't need to do it backwards if you use rice paper.

Draw it on a piece of normal paper in thick black pen. Put the rice paper over the top and ice on the design. When it's cooled, put the rice paper on the cake and wet the exposed paper so it melts into the cake.

Works with writing icing lol

www.thecakestore.co.uk/acatalog/Treble_Clef.html

God i wish I could just put the rice paper in the normal printer and do it that way!

I think rice paper is the way forward here ladies. Thank you for pointing me in that direction. I've just found some black piping gel in my box of tricks so see if that works.

Off to experiment now...

Let me know if it works? I used it once as an activity at school and it was all a bit rushed and last minute. I'd be intrigued to know if it can be done "properly" lol

Nope it doesn't work.

So royal icing is needed maybe then? I'm saying that because I can't think what else would set to a state in which I could move it over onto the cake IYSWIM. Also it would give a neat finish. So I outline the TC on the rice paper, do a rim round the edge and then flood it with royal icing, wait until it's all set then glue it to the cake?

Bloody hate working with royal icing.

Actually I should just bite the bullet shouldn't I and royal ice directly onto the cake. Do beads on the outer edge of the TC and then flood it. Saves having to do any tricky transfers.

Annoyingly I'm not at all confident with royal.

I always do this. Someone asks me for a cake and I breezily say oooh not a problem. Then I'm stuck here at 2am trying to figure out how to do the darn thing.

Do you have a sugar shaper? You could transfer the shape onto the cake with pin pricks, then use a sugar shaper to glue a 'bead' round the edge, and flood with royal icing?

(I am crap with piping so will find any possible way to get out of doing anything accurate with it!)

stealthsquiggle

you have hit another fab idea....

OP, flat ice the cake then prick out the shape, then pipe round the shape ala dot-to-dot.
I wouldn't personally use a star nozzle, but a round one, very small, perhaps 1mm in white (or to match base colour of cake) then use this line as a guide to pipe on top with colour? Really easy to infil with coloured icing after that.

How's it going, Pennies? You know we'll all want a picture, don't you?

Well I've decided to start with the pin-prick then flooding idea. If that doesn't work then I have bought some flower paste to see if I can do it that way.

I've got to get the children in bed first then the creation will take place. I'm not expecting to get to bed much before 1am!

I've come to this thread rather too late, but would also suggest run out/flooding. If you are doing it in black, make sure you give the royal icing colour time to mature; ie make it now and let the colour develop over a couple of hours - what looks grey initially will look black on the cake. Too much colour in the icing can denature it and give a slightly grainy texture.

Good luck.

Not late at all Molecule. I'm so bad at piping - any tips. I can't face doing a straight line edge that i'm thinking of doing pearls instead and then flooding it - will this work?

no sugar shaper, then ?

This is probably too late, but you could cover the cake with two layers of sugarpaste, the top layer being fairly thin. Don't stick the top layer to the base layer on the top of the cake. Cut out the shape of the treble clef on the top of the cake and remove the top layer of icing, so you still have a base layer of sugarpaste. Then flood the area with royal icing, runny enough so that it will level itself. To create a shiny surface to the royal icing, position a lamp over it so that the heat from it dries the top.

Not tried this myself, but it would work, I think.

Another way would be to create a template of the treble clef by cutting out the shape in a thin sheet of plastic, such as a laminating sheet. Position the template over the cake, then using a firmish royal icing, spread it on the cake (with a palette knife or similar) over the template, then remove. I have done this before and it gives a good sharp edge.

How's it going Pennies?
You must post a picture

O. M. G.

It's 1.15am and I'm going to bed. This cake has been the cake from hell.

It was all going amazingly. I piped the edge of the TC rather than doing pearls and it went like a dream. The flooding looked pretty even.

I then drew staves and the music for Happy Birthday To You on three sides. It looked fab.

Then I realised that I'd forgotten to move the cake onto the prepared cake board and it was still on the chopping board.

Fuck.

I moved it and the icing cracked and went wonky. The TC cracked a bit too. It's taken me about an hour to try and administer first aid and I might be able to get away with it but I can't really charge full whack for it now.

So totally pissed off. Don't know why I didn't move it over once I'd covered it like I normally do.

Anyway, pic on profile. Not my finest by any stretch of the imagination, although before the moving debacle it was in my top 5.

Annoying doesn't begin to cover it.

Happy 3rd birthday? Are you kidding me?

Is that Mozart's cake ponders?

LOL - I noticed that too!