One thing I used to love to do is to try to duplicate restaurant recipes so that I could make their delicious foods in my own kitchen. It’s not all that hard to figure out most or all of the ingredients; you can often taste each flavor. But the difficult part was deciding how much of each thing to put into it. By the time I tried, and tried again, I would finally get something close to the original recipe, but often, it wouldn’t taste exactly the same as what was served at the restaurant. Are you that way about cakes? Do you love to watch television shows about kitchen masters and the fabulous cakes they create? It’s fun to try to recreate the same thing, especially if you’re the one who is making a cake for a wedding, anniversary, or other special occasion. One cake that is eye-catching, yet easier to make than one might think, is a birdcage cake. When you make it, the crowd will give you endless praises, you can feed many people, and you can make the birdcage exactly the way you want it.
A birdcage cake is usually a huge production but there are lots of shortcuts you can take to make something similar to what the professionals produce. However, if you want to make a birdcage cake that looks exactly like those you see on television, you can do that, too. Just bake four round cakes – whatever flavor/color you want – and allow them to cool. In addition to the four round cakes you’ll need one cake, which has been baked in a metal bowl, and is the same diameter as the round cakes.
Spread a layer of frosting on one of the round cakes, stack the next one, and continue layering frosting and cake until all four of the round cakes are stacked. Frost the top cake and turn the bowl cake, upside-down, on top of it. That will give you the basic shape of the birdcage. How you decorate it is up to you.
Fondant is all the rage because you can shape and mold it like play-dough. It’s quite a lot of trouble, but you have to do it if you want to exactly duplicate the look of a professional birdcage cake. Follow the directions on the fondant package to process it, then mold it to fit over the tower of cakes. You can make fondant wires for the cage, flowers, birds, and more.
A shortcut to finishing the birdcage cake is to just frost it with regular frosting. However, it’s important that you smooth it out on all sides, and all over the top. Instead of fondant accents, you can pipe on wires for the cage. Make or buy frosting flowers, and put them, here and there, on the cake. Bird cookies – after they’re frosted – look fabulous, pressed against the sides of the cake. Your birdcage cake will rival that of the professionals – in appearance and taste!
Reference:
- Bird cookies: www.sunflowerbaking.com/resources/sweeney.html
