How do you put birthday cake with butter cream icing into party bag without it becoming a gooey mess ?

[wheelybug]

I should use harder icing shouldn't I ? Would rather do buttercream as am panicing about colouring the other ....

Any ideas oh wise ones ?

Wrap each piece in a serviette or piece of kitchen roll.

Buy ready to roll coloured icing most cake decorating shops stock a huge variety of colours there are also packs in supermarkets of Red Yellow green and black

Just like rolling out playdoh

I did a traybake style cake which i cut up in advance, wrapped in kitchen roll and put in the party bags - no icing or buttercream, just a dusting of icing sugar

Then had delicious chocolate fudge birthday cake on teh table

How GUTTED those children must have been when they got home

WHEELYBUG I FORBID YOU TO USE THAT ROLL ON ICING....IT'S GROSS Buttercream icing and pop the cake in the fridge for as long as poss. before you put it in party bags (even if you have to do candles etc early on in pary) should stop stickiness.

LOL MamaG !

Jingley - I have bought some ready to roll stuff but I need purple so would have to colour it myself...

Hmmmm....

Oh dances..

Problem is the party is at the leisure centre so no refridgeration facilities and we'd have to do cake towards end as they have an hour soft play and then tea so rejigging timing isn't possible.

I have bought some cellophane bag things - do you think if I wrap each piece in a napkin (or kitchen roll) then pop into cellophane bag it would ok-ish ?

It WILL all stick to the kitchen roll, or placky bag, or tin foil etc etc

It will. You can't get away from it.

What is your cake like? Can't you just swizzle runny icing all over the top and let it set?

It will be a purple butterfly.... I hope.

TBH I would seriously think about doing what I did. Or even buying basic a basic sponge cake or two and cutting htem up and wrapping in advance.

Do you really want to be panicking and frantically cutting and wrapping cake, while half the kids are leaving and the other half are trying to leave, 3 are being sick, DD is crying becuase she's overtired etc etc!

(then you can put buttercream on teh "real" cake!)

Maybe I should just use the fondant stuff in a packet I bought today and attempt to colour it (perhaps I should just stick to pink then I won't have to combine colours ...hmmm).

Why don't you just eat the cake at the party like we did in the olden days?

Because I need something to fill the party bags

Have just done an experimental colouring of a piece of the ready roll and its coloured purple no probs. However, its now gone a bit gooey so am waiting to see if it re-hardens.

Message withdrawn

thats a great idea but by the time we serve it at leisure centre it will be a milkshake .

If you HAVE to use the fondant icing you need to colour it with this sort of paste to stop the icing going gooey. If you want me to get you some and post it to save you P & P it's no problem as they have a shop near me and I need to go down there anyway.

oh bum. That would have been great dances but its for saturday. Thanks for the offer though.

I think colouring it with normal stuff, and resting it, seems to have worked though ??? I only did a small bit though.

Hmm.. will google cake decorating shops in the locale but despite living in london can't think of any.

Do people really eat the cake once it comes home? The dcs always seem to abandon theirs.

dd normally stuffs it down her face on the way home

Oh decisions decisions. I guess i can attempt the harder stuff and if it doesn't look like it iwll work use butter cream...... except you have to put jam on the cake to stick th ready roll stuff...

oh its not really that important is it ?

Fondant icing is a good compromise. I cheat and buy the stuff in a box like icing sugar and mix it to the right consistency.

Or you could accept that it doesn't matter because most DCs tend to ignore it anway. In fact I have thought of supplying a cardboard cake and just putting chocolate in the party bags

its fondant icing I have - is this different to ready roll (stupid emoticon !). There are no instructions on the packet - do I just roll it though ? Its pre-made so you dont' have to mix it.

Just in case you're still caring out there I have come up with an ingenious plan.

I am doing a butterfly and dd is mad crazy about smarties so I thought I'd put some on the body of the butterfly. Then (Here's the clever bit ) when we come to cut it up I'll only put inner bits in bags (so there's only one surface with buttercream on) and I'll sprinkle a load more smarties on the bits with buttercream on so:

a) every child thinks they got the best bit
b) it should stop too much of the buttercream going everywhere as the smarties will provide a protective layer.

Right... now to work out how to colour buttercream...

how to colour? mix MADLY

good plan

thanks !

As an addition to my plan - we have just realised there will be a lot of cake left over once the butterfly has been cut out so I can make some bits already for putting in the party bags.

thanks for all your help ladies !