Double birthday celebration tonight!! Esther and Ilayne are just a day apart and as tonight was Book Club night it was a perfect time to celebrate both. In keeping with the theme of the event (no woman considers herself less than a princess) I thought a tiara on a pillow cake would be perfect.
First the tiara as it takes a couple of days to make. I found an online tutorial which showed how to make the tiara. I found a pattern that I liked, copied it and enhanced and printed it.
I wrapped it around a plastic Tupperware type bowl and covered it with waxed paper, piped Royal Icing (appropriate, I think) using a #1 tip to follow the lines. Letting it dry for at least 2 hours I added a second layer being sure all the contact points were well connected. If you don’t do that the tiara will be to fragile to move. When the second coat is complete, leave it on the bowl for at least a day to dry completely. Carefully remove it and airbrush it with a silver edible paint. When that is dry I added the rubies by painting the areas with red gel food coloring. When everything was dry I dusted it with some silver to make it sparkle.Make two 9″x2″ cakes and bind them together with some chocolate ganache.
Freeze the cake overnight. To sculpt the cake place tooth picks in the center of each side, about one inch from the edge and cut a smooth curve from each corner, through the toothpick to the next corner. When completed, shave some of the cake away from the edges to make the rounded pillow look. Use some buttercream frosting to crumb coat the cake then put it back in the fridge to set. After a few hours I like to smooth it off with my gloved hands so the cake will have a very satiny finish.
Knead coloring into a large piece of fondant (about the size of your fist.) Roll the fondant until it is very thin and drape around the cake. Overlap the bottom to be sure it holds together and trim the rest. I used the remainder to cover the small 6″ crumb coated cake I used as the base. I airbrushed some pearl dusting to give the fondant a satin finish.
Let this sit for a while to dry, then using some more butter cream frosting (dyed pink this time) I piped the seams and tassels of the pillow. Finally with white butter cream I piped the names of my two royal princesses, Esther and Ilayne.
From what I heard it was well received. They seemed to love that they could eat the tiara… go figure!
aBatteredOldSuitcase 