Baking & Decorating a cake for DD2's birthday....Yikes!

[whingeomatic]

Okaaaay, I've decided to make a cake for dd2's first birthday, which in itself is not a problem (I make a mean Victoria sandwich ) I could do with a few tips on decorating it though!!

1. I usually bake the cake in 2 x 8 inch round sandwich tins for about 15 mins at 180 degrees. If I want to make the cake square, using a single 8 inch deep tin (and split once cooked) how long do I need to bake for?

2. Am planning to use ready rolled icing to cover the cake and then cut out shapes from coloured ready to roll icing. Can I get ready coloured or do I need to attempt this myself?

3)Do I need to coat the cake with melted jam to help the icing to stick, and what is the best way to attach the icing shapes?

3. can you get lettering stencils to do the "happy birthday DD2" bit?

Sorry for the mega questions - am a total novice in all things sugarcraft!!

You can get lettering stencils. You can also get letter cutters (like mini biscuit cutters) in letters and numbers. I love mine and use them all the time, so even though they are quite expensive I think they are a good buy.

You can buy red,green,yellow and black ready to roll icing from most supermarket, and every other colour you can imagine from sugar craft shops. If you want to colour your own, particularly if you want dark colours, buy colouring paste if you can - the liquid colours make it too wet. Wear plastic gloves too - or you'll end up with multi coloured hands!

I use butter cream to stick the icing to the cake. For sticking on shapes, dissolve a blob of white icing in boiling water to make "glue". A paint brush is the easiest way to apply it.

Hope this helps. Anything else you want to know, just ask!

If you are making the cake deeper and bigger I'd recommend reducing the temperature slightly; not sure quite how long it would take though. Have you considered cooking it in 2 seperate layers, one after the other? That may give a better result if it's a sandwich cake recipe.

I've seen the letter and number cutters in Tesco recently. I bought mine on Amazon. You can also get packs of sugar letters and chocolate letters in the cake decorating sections of supermarkets.

I use melted apricot jam to stick on icing, and then just use water (applied with a clean brush) to stick the shapes on the icing.

Thanks both - I knew I'd get decent advice on here.

I like the idea about cooking in two layers and think a visit to the baking aisle is needed

It's her birthday on the 1st Oct so I'll have a practice run next weekend (can never have too much cake!!) and see what happens...