Friday I plan to bake a wonderful, awesome, and tasty birthday cake for a friend of mine- another friend is helping me with this endeavor.
Anywho, let me briefly explain what we are looking to do: the cake will be two layers- a bottom layer of white cake tinted pink, with white frosting and a top, heart shaped layer of white cake (just plain white) with pink frosting. Easy enough, yeah? Oh, and we’re just using standard butter cream frosting.
The problem is: I’m not sure what is the best way to turn the actual cake pink.
I have regular, red food color, which I could use in moderation to get a nice, light pink color. I just returned from Michael’s where I purchased some hot pink “Icing Color Concentrated Paste”.
The paste looks like the best option for the frosting, but Im not sure what effect this gel paste will have on the cake. Will adding the paste to the batter make the cake bake differently? Would I be better off using the regular (red) food coloring? Is there something better that I should use?
I’d use the paste for both. Liquid is good for some things, but to get a strong enough color you would have to add too much.
Mix the cake batter as directed, but about three-quarters of the way through take a little, smear it with some paste, and gently blend that into the cake batter as a whole. Don’t start off with much, that stuff really is concentrated. If after blending you don’t think it’s strong enough add a little more to the batter and fold in gently.
When making buttercream icing add paste after the powdered sugar has been moistened. Again, add not quite as much as you think you need, especially in frosting the color will “ripen”. By that I mean it gets a little stronger with sitting, even for just a short while.
You can always add more color to either batter or frosting, but once the color is too strong you can’t weaken it.
I like using pink paste, instead of “pale red”. I don’t know what it is, but there is a difference.
Are you going to pipe decorations, huh, huh? I did a Godzilla cake recently for my nephew, a five year old. He wanted Godzilla colored blue. What Bakernephew wants, Bakernephew gets.
I think I love you! Thank you so much for your answer. I am now confident in my cake pinkifyication technique! Woo hoo!
The paste I got is actually called “Rose Pink”, but it seems to be your standard, brightish pink.
And I do plan to pipe some decorations (a border at the base of the heart and the base of the bottom layer, as well). I’ve never taken a cake decorating class, though- in fact, this is only the second “major” cake that my friend and I have attempted. The first cake we did was a penis cake for my birthday. Heck, we actually got a perfect peachy color (after much, much mixing heh). I guess this is. . . NSFW . . . in a sexy, baked goods sorta way.
The point of all that is: I don’t want to go too crazy with my decorating of the cake, because it is likely that I’d screw it up somehow. Oh! I am going to cover the heart (which will be frosted with pink frosting) with pink sprinkles. Why? Sprinkles rule, thats why.
Make those pink sprinkles a different shade of pink from the frosting, so there is contrast,
Too bad you aren’t here in Topeka. We have a store called Cake and Candy Supply. If they don’t have it, you don’t need it. Seriously. They have a huge variety of sprinkles, including heart shaped ones. I buy all my decorating supplies there. They even started doing mail orders, as they’ve had customers move away who say even the bigger cities don’t have their selection.
That penis cake was amusing. I like where you put the candles!
Did you ever see the episode of Barney Miller in which complaints were made that a local bakery was selling baked goods in obscene shapes? The funniest part was that said shapes were never described, and even when a box was brought into the station as “evidence”, you couldn’t see the stuff. Your own imagination did the work. One guy passed by the box, looked at what we couldn’t see, and remarked “I never would have thought of putting poppyseeds there!”
Well, technically it wasn’t Godzilla, but a pan from Wilton called “Megasaurus” It’s the head and shoulders(and teeth and claws!) of a scary looking dino looking at you. The pan is “out of print” but the store I mentioned has pans they rent, and that was one of them. You may be able to view it on Wilton’s website, I don’t know.
I agree, pink would be cool. With pearl colored claws, big blue eyes and long soft eye lashes. Or is that over the top?
I didn’t even think about doing a different color pink for the sprinkles! Brilliant, you are. I’m thinking a lighter pink frosting, with hot pink sprinkles!
Man, I do love sprinkles- so much fun! I almost bought these ones at Michael’s. . . they had a funny name. I can’t find them online, but they almost looked like little shreds of sprinkly paper-- very shiny. Def. neat. Alas, I already had my sprinkles.
I’m VERY far from Topeka, unfortunately. And it seems that our town doesn’t even have a bakery supply store! Michael’s and the internet will have to work That store has an amazing website though- I love all of the tips and tricks!
Never saw that episode, but I did see the episode of Friends where they got an offensive cake for the baby’s first birthday. Hell, that is where I first learned that such cakes existed. Ah, God Bless America! hehe
Actually, I lie. When I was 3, my grandfather had his 50th birthday. His cake was naked boobies and he got his faced smashed in it. That was. . . disturbing.
And I think we can all agree that Megasauraus rules. Two times.
Megasauraus wouldn’t be over the top in pink- oh no! He’d def. be FAB-ULOUS! .
Well, here I was going to answer you post with all this great info only to read the next post to find Baker already said everything I was going to say about pastes and adding less than you think.
The cake you’re planning to make sounds totally adorable! I love baking and I’ve had so much fun making cakes from scratch, especially for my son’s birthdays. For his 5th birthday he had a Harry Potter theme. I made a cake and decorated it like a chessboard. Charlie has been playing chess since he was 3½ and we put his “wizzard chess” pieces on the cake. I put candles in shape of the 4 Hogwarts houses at each corner. Best cake I ever did. It came out so well!
