My sister is leaving tomorrow for Costa Rica to help save baby sea turtles. I decided to bake her a cake as part of her send off. I am in no way an expert on cake decorating; however, I recently took a class and learned some useful tips and tricks that I am going to share with you.
I used a boxed mix to bake two nine inch round layers. I made sure to rotate the pans halfway through. My oven is twenty years old, and this stops the cake from getting over cooked on one side.
I used to smash my dome shaped cakes together when making a layered cake. At my class I discovered cake saws (aka a cake leveler), which made smooshing unnecessary.
I used the Wilton icing colors and premade icing. This was not enough frosting, so I made a batch of Wilton buttercream icing. Josh said the icing from scratch was just as good as Pillsbury.
Instead of filling the layers with frosting, I used dulce de leche pudding. By using an icing bag with just a coupler, I made a thick band of icing to hold in the pudding.
Next I found a simple sea turtle graphic online. I covered it with wax paper and traced the turtle using Wilton decorating gel. Air bubbles were a bit of a problem and it certainly was not perfect. I slapped the wax paper with the gel on top of my cake to transfer the image. Then I watered down some icing and used a paint brush to fill in the shapes. You could use an icing bag, but I feel like I have more control with the brush.
My squiggles and stars were supposed to be sea weed and star fish.
It's a little wonky, but I think it's cute.
I think she liked it. It was probably the best sea turtle cake she has ever received. (the eye patch was in celebration of national talk like a pirate day.)
OK, I love this! Great idea on transferring the design! Thanks for the comment!
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