Thermotwinning: Blue Ombre Smash Cakes - Ethan and Harley's First Birthday!

The big day has come and gone, and now I can finally sit back and relax ahhhhh...

A few days ago I posted the baking and freezing of the smash cakes: http://thermotwinning.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/baking-and-freezing-smash-cakes-ethan.html

This is the decorating (FUN) part of the SMASH CAKES!!

Smash Cakes!

The day before the boys birthday party, I took the cakes out of the freezer to defrost in the morning. Whilst defrosting, I made the buttercream icing.

I actually started making the buttercream icing in the Thermomix, but it couldn't keep up with the huge amount that I was making for both the smash cakes, and both the 'main' cakes which ended up being 9 KILOS OF BUTTERCREAM ICING!! (6kg Icing Sugar and 3kg butter). Sorry Thermie (I ended up getting error messages for overloading it lol!), but my old faithful Kitchenaid turned out to be my saviour for the day!! It was actually easier to spoon the buttercream right out of the bowl (rather than try and get it out from under the blades of the Thermomix) and make larger amounts.

I made the buttercream icing using a 1:2 ratio of butter to icing sugar. No need to measure/weigh anything - I just chucked in a 500gm block of butter (room temp. cut into cubes), beat for about 30 seconds, then interrupted the beating about 4 times to progressively add and beat in a 1kg packet of icing sugar. I then beat till light, fluffy and when you can see the 'yellowy' butter colour has turned white. I didn't add any vanilla bean/flavouring to it since it would be a waste since the cake is meant to be 'smashed'! ...and the boys wouldn't know any different lol!

Kitchenaid vs Thermomix

Whilst the buttercream icing was beating, I unwrapped the 4 layers of cake (x2) and cut the tops off to give it an even flat top (...the cake tops were great to snack on whilst I made the cake!!).

Defrosting and unwrapping the smash cake layers

Cutting the tops off the cakes

I then started layering the cakes with from the darkest blue cake, blue, light blue then up to the white cake. I secured the bottom cake layer with melted white chocolate between the cake board and the cake. (FYI the cake boards are $10 round chopping boards from Kmart)!

Securing the bottom layer of cake to the board with white chocolate

I secured the cake layers with about a 1cm layer of buttercream.

Cake layers with buttercream icing

Then filled in the 'gaps' and covered the entire cake with a crumb layer then put in the fridge to set. The crumb layer is like a primer to 'paint' on the outer decorative layer of buttercream so you don't get any stray crumbs with the finished product.

Crumb Layer

Whilst the crumb layer set in the fridge, I piped out lettering of the boys names with candy melts (I put some in a ziplock bag, then microwaved in 20-30 second intervals, checked and squished it around in between, until it was all melted, then cut the tip of a corner to pipe out). I piped out the names many times and in upper case and lower case as I wasn't sure what I wanted to use until the final product, and did several for 'back ups' and so I could choose the best looking out of them.

Lettering with melted Candy Melts

Once the crumb layer was set (just needs to be cold and not sticky when you touch it), I mixed up another batch of buttercream, and divided into 4 - white and 3 varying shades of blue. I used Royal Blue Wilton Gel food colouring and added the colour progressively with a dipped toothpick.

Mixing shades of blue buttercream icing

I started from the bottom of the cake, with the darkest blue colour to correspond with the darkest blue colour cake underneath. I then added the different shades of blue the topped with white and spread it together. I then used the tip of a small metal spatula and lightly run it around the whole cake to create a rounded indentation (forgot to take a photo!).

Outer buttercream ombre icing

Mixing/integrating the shades together

I then topped with a wooden cake topper, added my piped out candy melts red lettering and placed an iced sugar cookie that I made a few days ago: http://thermotwinning.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/iced-sugar-cookies-ethan-and-harley.html

Finished!

Ethan and Harley's Smash Cakes

To further add to the Nautical Theme, I blitzed some Scotch Finger biscuits in the Thermomix (on turbo for a few times) to create 'sand' that I placed around the bottom of the cake.

Ethan and Harley's Smash Cakes with the Smash cake backdrop

The smash cake setting consisted of the smash cake backdrop I made last week (http://thermotwinning.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/smash-cake-backdrop-decorations-ethan.html) and an artificial grass mat I bought from Bunnings. My husband attached the smash cake backdrop to chairs as it was too heavy to be taped up on the wall.

The boys were very cute with the smash cake session. They are usually very destructive boys who love to eat everything and anything, however they had stage fright on the day and 'picked' at the cake. I had to come in and stick their hands and feet into it!!