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Happy 2014! New Year’s Blog Tutorial

December 29, 2013 By Melissa D. 18 Comments

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Hi everyone! I’m sorry, I’m down to the wire on this one. ;0)

Today, I’m going to share my easy New Year’s Cake with you, which is carved from a simple one layer 9×13 sheet cake. (If you need more servings, make a two layer sheet or go larger…this is an easy design to change up!)

First, I created a template by tearing off a sheet of parchment paper the size of my cake. I played around with the size of the numbers until the spacing was right, and cut it out. This is what I used as my carving guide. I’m going to link to my template to save you a few minutes.  This is a two part template.  Just print, cut out, and lay on the cake!:  PART 1 and PART 2.

IMG_3347

I used a doctored cake mix for this to increase the density a bit. Denser cakes stand up best to carving. Use whatever recipe you’d like, but the recipe that I used is “White Almond Sour Cream Cake”, as found HERE.  I also like to freeze my cakes before carving to reduce the number of crumbs.  This is optional, but it helps!

 

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I frosted my cake with a coat of vanilla buttercream.

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I often use the “Viva” method for smoothing but I was out of Viva paper towels!  So, I used my next favorite method for smoothing–the hot knife method.  I chilled my frosted cake just until the icing was firm, and then smoothed over it with a very hot spatula…adding fresh icing here and there.

You can see above that I have a cardboard cake board beneath my cake.  All of my cakes have a cake board so that I can easily move them to their their base or platter later.  With this cake, I used an xacto knife to cut the board down to the size of the cake.  I didn’t bother cutting away the narrow space between the “1” and “4”, but aside from that it was easy to follow the lines of the cake.

I used a toothpick to define our numbers…we’ll use these lines as a guide in a few minutes.  (By the way, I moved my cake to a cake base which is two stacked cake boards covered with a black plastic tablecloth.)

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I filled in a few holes (in the “4” and “2”) with black sugar pearls to define them.  I also rolled a long snake of (pre-colored) red Satin Ice fondant to outline what will soon become a clock on top of our “0”.  I use a few fondant accents on this cake but all could be easily substituted with buttercream piping.  I placed a gold dragee in the center of our clock.  We’ll add fondant numbers and hands later!IMG_3386

Below, you can see that our “1” is wearing a tuxedo (fondant bow tie with buttercream buttons).  Our “4” has a party hat with red fondant stripes and buttercream fringe which was piped with a grass piping tip. IMG_3388

More accents– I attached a piece of tinsel around a lollipop stick with a piece of floral wire.  I pushed the stick into the cake as an anchor, and this will give our party hat a fun gold pom pom on top.  Alternatives could be buttercream piped with a grass tip, or you could fringe a narrow strip of paper and wrap it around the tip of a lollipop stick for a similar look ;0)

You can also see more of the clock below.  The numbers are fondant, cut with tappit cutters, and our “1” now is wearing a cummerbund (which is just a rectangle of black fondant with a couple of horizontal impressions made with my knife)

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We are almost finished!!  Our “2” is very boring up until now.  I made a champagne template placed on top of my fondant (tinted Wilton leaf green).  I let it set up for a few minutes until I could pick it up easily without worry of distorting.  I used a food coloring pen to outline it, and gave it a fondant label.  Then I placed the bottle on my “2”, and piped swirls of buttercream with a Wilton tip 2.

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I added a few sugar pearls to my swirls on my “2”, and then as a final touch, added the clock’s hands (thin pieces of fondant) and sparkling sugar all over.   We are finished!!

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Finally, I used a Wilton tip 2 to outline my numbers, and for fun I piped a vertical line on the bottom half of my “1” for the look of white pants ;0)  Then, I used a Wilton tip 21 to create a shell border around the bottom.

 

Ready to see the final cake?  Looks like a party! ;0)

 

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I hope that you enjoyed this little tutorial. There are so many variations that you could apply to make this cake your own, so have fun with it!

Thanks for stopping by, and best wishes for a happy, healthy 2014!! xoxo

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Filed Under: Blog Tutorials

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Comments

  1. Elizabeth December 29, 2013 at 9:58 pm

    This is awesome and I appreciate u for sharing. It makes my amateur hands feel like trying it and I wouldn’t stop it.

    Reply
  2. Melissa Diamond December 29, 2013 at 11:18 pm

    Thanks Elizabeth!! I hope you try it ;0)

    Reply
  3. Kym December 30, 2013 at 8:55 am

    Another adorable design!

    Reply
  4. cake it is December 30, 2013 at 9:44 am

    Beautiful and very creative as always. Happy New Year to you and Bebe! Thank you for all the wonderful lessons this 2013 and looking forward to more on 2014!

    Reply
  5. Leslie December 30, 2013 at 9:52 am

    Such a cute idea. Thanks so much for sharing.

    Reply
  6. Theresa December 30, 2013 at 10:09 am

    Happy Sweet New Year to you and your family Melissa! Thanks for all your creative ideas! Cheers!
    Theresa

    Reply
  7. Tracy December 30, 2013 at 10:14 am

    So cute Melissa!! Hope you had a great Christmas and enjoy the new year!!!

    Reply
  8. teri10309 December 30, 2013 at 11:11 am

    what a great idea, i always do my number cakes like this so i do not throw away a lot of cake. Just the way you dressed everything up, great as usual melissa!

    Reply
  9. Dana December 30, 2013 at 12:22 pm

    This is ADORABLE! You are so creative! Thanks for sharing with us.

    Reply
  10. hanna December 30, 2013 at 12:22 pm

    I love it! I was looking for an original idea for a New Year Cake. I’ll do it!
    Thank you very very much.

    Reply
  11. Joanie December 30, 2013 at 12:32 pm

    So adorable Melissa and Bebe! Thank you for the inspiration. Wishing you both an amazing 2014!

    Reply
  12. Melissa Diamond December 30, 2013 at 12:43 pm

    Thank you all so much for your comments!! They are so appreciated. Happy New Year!! xo

    Reply
  13. Jody Finlay December 30, 2013 at 4:37 pm

    I LOVE THIS!!! We are moving soon so I haven’t been able to bake/decorate at all for Christmas or New Year’s and I would love to try this….It’s so cute!!!!

    Reply
  14. Gloria Westerman December 30, 2013 at 5:32 pm

    This is so adorable….I love how you divide it up ….great showcase…tfs

    Reply
  15. Azi F. December 30, 2013 at 5:50 pm

    Soooo pretty. I’m new to this site so please bear with me. Do you have recipes for “doctoring” cake mixes? Resources for where to get templates for make the numbers? Are there recipes for the buttercreams? Do you usually make suggestions of what to you that will hold up or be easy to pipe? How about fondant? Do you buy yours or make yours? If so any suggestions? Thank you!!!!

    Reply
  16. Nancy T December 31, 2013 at 10:50 am

    Brilliant,thank you for sharing.

    Reply
  17. BeBe January 1, 2014 at 10:56 pm

    Hi Azi, Yes, on the site we have “doctored” cake recipes and also recipes for buttercream. We most often make our fondant…..when we buy we use Satin Ice.

    Reply
  18. PattyBug January 2, 2014 at 3:37 pm

    AMAZING!!!!!

    Reply

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