Starburst Cake

My chosen new skill set to acquire for this year is cake decorating. For the next few Mondays I will be posting the cakes I have decorated during my Sunday courses.
Week 1: Starburst cake

Starburst Cake

This is a 3 tier madeira/sponge mix cake with a buttercream and raspberry jam filling and white fondant icing. The coloured stars are made out of Squires flower paste. I have used the colours mint, black and white. I have also used a white shimmer powder on the white stars so they are not as invisible as they would have otherwise have been. The wires for the stars are fuschia pink to match the ribbon surrounding the 5 inch cake. Each wire was cut to size once the stars had been added to them. I used a smaller white stars ontop of some of the larger stars to add dimension. The stars are attached to the fondant icing using edible glue applied using a brush.
Icing the board and getting the height with the stars makes all the difference. I chose to show the join rather than blending it as I felt this went well with the lineal feel of the design.

3 tiers

It is a simple design and may look easy to do. The key is preparing the cake for icing and getting the icing even on the cake and stars.
Tricky parts:
- The corners for both buttercream and royal icing need specific attention.
- Equal sponge height. I used a cake slice but you can use a knife if you have a good eye and a level hand.
- Flower paste stars - can't be too thin as the stars won't attach but don't make them too thick or the stars will be too heavy forcing the wire to become shorter to compendate therefore reducing the impact of the cake.
I will do a post on how to prepare a sponge cake for icing and another on how to ice a square and a round cake shortly.
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