Petal Icing on a Cake and Bachelorette Party!

I've made tons of cakes for a lot of different reasons and I think the easiest way to make your cake look awesome on the cheap is to ice it in an awesome way. It takes a little bit of time and patience, but it makes you looks like a super skilled cake expert and its ridiculously easy!

Here are some pictures of cakes I've done in the past. You can leave it plain and it looks awesome or you can add candles, a topper, bunting.....whatever your little heart desires!

I made one for my sister's bachelorette party this weekend so I took a few pictures so I could show you guys how to do it!

Things you will need:

-2 boxes of cake mix/stuff to make the cakes
-2 Circular cake pans, your choice of size
-Whipped cream cheese icing
- Powdered Sugar
-Food coloring (optional)
-Icing spatula (smaller is better)
-Whatever you want to use to decorate the top
-Gallon Sized Ziplock bags

Step 1- You'll need to make 2 round cakes, you can use whatever size you want, however big (or small) you need. I used 9 inch cake pans and Betty Crocker cake mix because I'm lazy super busy and don't want to have time to make them from scratch. You can make it from scratch if you want, more power to you Martha Stewart! Which ever way you decide to do it, make sure you THOROUGHLY grease your pans so the cakes slide out when you're done, thats really important!

Step 2- Bake your cakes.

Step 3- Once the cakes are done, flip them out of the pan and use a long knife and cut the tops off of the cakes, so that they lay fat once they cool and get stacked.

Step 4-While you're waiting for the cakes to cool, put the icing into a bowl (I use 2 cans on a cake like this) and add food coloring (if you want it to be colored). I also add about a 1/2 cup of powdered sugar, this makes it stiffer and its easier to do the icing technique. Keep the icing in the fridge until you're ready to use it.

Step 5- Once its cooled, put one cake on whatever its going to lay on (a plate, cakestand, whatever) and then put a layer of icing on top of the first layer. Stack the second cake on top. Once you have the cakes lined up how you want them put on a thin layer of icing. I call this the "crumb layer" because there will probably be those annoying little crumblies in it. But that's ok because you're going to add another layer anyway and you wont be able to see it.

Step 6- Take a gallon sized plastic ziplock bag and snip off the corner, not TOO much because you don't want the dot size to be too big. Fill the bag with icing and make one column of dots down the side of the cake. After you have ONE column take your spatula, put in on top of the dot, push down and smear to the right. Do with each dot in the column. Then make another column of dots and repeat.....over and over and over again. Then once you get all the way around do the same for the top of the cake.

Tips:
- After you do about every 2 dots you'll want to keep the icing bowl nearby so that you can wipe the spatula on the edge and get all of the excess icing off. This will make sure you get a clean swipe.

- If your icing starts to get runny its just because its getting too warm. Take a break and stick it in the fridge for about 10 minutes. OR you can keep another bag in the fridge and when one starts to get runny swap them out.

-When you come full circle and get back to where you started there will be a little seam. My suggestion is to use a butter knife and smooth it out the best that you can. Make this the back of the cake so no one can see in photos :)

Step 7- Decorate as you see fit, add your topper, candles, etc and let the icing set overnight.

Step 8- Bring your cake to whatever event you made it for and stand back while everyone compliments you on what a culinary genius you are! You can tell them its Betty Crocker or you can pretend that you belong on the next episode of cake wars....totally up to you!

This was the end product for my sister's bachelorette cake....pretty hilarious if I do say so myself. I call it Hot Mess Barbie.

  

So that's it for making a petal cake but I also wanted to share some fun pictures of the bachelorette party we had this weekend. Its so nice when all the hard work you put in on all these little details come together and pay off!


We got so many compliments on the homemade tee's I made! And we got a ton of attention walking through the park, people shouting at us and congratulating my sister, Epcot was definitely a great place to have it. Everyone had a blast and the food and (many, many, many, many, many) drinks were all delish!

It rained all morning and we got SOAKED, but it cleared up and we drank through the bad weather!

The bride on our way up in the decorated Bachelorette-mobile

 

 

 

You can really see the t shirt in this picture from Germany, where we indulged in several beer flights with new friends

Everyone who came to Epcot on a ride while we we're waiting out the rain

We all got matching ponchos but they we're see through and people were sill loving our shirts through them!

Once the rain cleared it was beautiful and a perfect day for drinking around the world (this was Chinese beer)

The going out photos from that night.... well lets just say that what happens at Disney, stays at Disney.