Mar 17, 2014

Classy, Simple yet Elegant Mini Cakes.....


I've always been in LOVE with Cakes. Party cakes, tea cakes, tiered cakes, small cakes, big cakes, tiny or tall cakes...all kinds and varieties - you name it and I love it! My craze for cakes started from all long as I can remember. Along with the taste of the cake I've also had a good eye for noticing cake presentation in details like edible sugar pearls, buttercream decorations, flowers, fondant figurines etc and what excites me is the fact that its all edible.

Off-late I've been very fascinated by modern and elegant designs for cakes. Single colored cakes with some simple designs like a ribbon border or swirls or large centerpiece flower or chevron patterns or lace pattern etc that makes the cake look simple, yet classy and elegant. I've been watching a lot of video tutorials wherever available and also reading a lot of cake related blogs to know of various techniques and ofcourse to drool over the master creations they come up with.

Now coming to mini cakes, I just love this concept of making a miniature version of a full sized cake with almost the same kind of decorations and cake flavors and I've always wanted to try it. My ex-colleague inviting a few of us friends to her new home for a simple get- together proved to be the perfect occasion to take such pretty cakes.  

For the each mini cake I went with these simple yet elegant designs (as pictured below) 



1. I wanted a simple pattern with just the focus on a big flower so that's how I came with this pretty pink pompom cake neatly finished with a ring border that's slightly embossed. The pompom took me a whole one hour to make but it was so worth it. I felt this one was my neatest cake of the lot.

2. I wanted another simple and almost similar pattern with yellow too, so made three mini yellow pompoms and placed them on top and neatly bordered the bottom with a yellow fondant ribbon again mildly embossed with a different pattern

3. The upside-down hearts was an idea that just instantly came to my mind (I love s ;-) ) and I had the perfect sized heart cutter for it. I placed a pretty pink Daisy over the cake centred with a sugar pearl for a simplistic finish.

4. The Offset Chevron is a design I've always wanted to try and my favorite color combo is yellow and white so went with that.  I tried the ever famous wax-paper transfer method to get this pattern around the cake. I placed a pretty Yellow daisy on the top for a final touch again centered with a sugar pearl....Afterall Pearls are a girl's best friends ain't they....or was it diamonds? :-P 

There were few imperfections in the cakes. The untidily covered cake boards (my first try) and a few air bubbles within my fondant was what bothered me the most. But my friend's saw none of it.  The cake was a yummy Chocolate cake with rich chocolate buttercream and it tasted great! The cakes were 3" in diameter and around 3.5" in height.

I neatly placed each mini cake in individual treat boxes, all taped up and asked them to pick any box. They were all so surprised and all of them got completely unique and individual mini cakes. It was the perfect dessert sized cake and their kids just loved the marshmallow fondant and was simply happy that they could eat the flowers :-) 




The concept for making mini cakes is simple. I made a regular quarter sheet sized chocolate cake (can use any flavor) and used a small steel vessel of 3" diameter with sharp edges (had no cookie cutter of right size) to cut out circles of cake and stacked two circles together with chocolate buttercream, coated the sides also with buttercream and wrapped them in marshmallow fondant and kept the decorations simple yet elegant.



Mini Cakes are also a perfect way to practice multiple designs on different individual cakes without having to make a whole different cake for each decoration you want to try and practice on. So hope I've given you a new idea and inspired you enough to give it a try.

So which one is your favorite? :-)



Pompom flower tutorial : Rumana's blog
Offset Chevron pattern : Inspired by Jessica Cakes

-Manju

21 comments:

  1. Great work ..Love the idea of mini cakes...they looks so pretty!!!

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  2. Wau...! so great and elegant designs..........another great inspiration for me......Thanx dear.....

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  3. Awesome and delicious looking mini cakes. Simply mouthwatering preparation.
    Deepa

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  4. Wow! These certainly look amazing and the idea of mini cakes is lovely. Keep it up my friend :)

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  5. Very pretty Manju.. I love the way you have done background to go with the cake..:-)

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  6. I will not show any partiality! All of them look really good, Manju... hat's off, it's an awesome attempt...

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  7. New to this blog and very deeply impressed. ... AMAZING lovely cakes... hats off for your patience in making these gorgeous looking cakes... :)

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  8. That is some artwork here Manju.. I loved the pink pompom cake the best :)

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  9. Blog header okke matti alle ? looking good..pine cake inte karyam parayandallo..elegant indeed !! lovely back ground for pictures :) it has been a while I dropped by here alle ?

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  10. Cakes look really pretty.. And I loved your idea of surprising your friends with it. One question... How do u make the marshmallow fondant. I have read and heard that marshmallow fondant tastes much better than the general one...

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  11. Great work manju..love the pastel colors

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  12. drooling...all of them look so elegant

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  13. Lovely cakes, a new way to treat your friends , and they look so cute :)

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  14. The cakes look cute.. are they inspired by Queen's hats :)

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  15. Hi manju..I am new to your blog..loved these mini cakes..your daisy flower reminded me of paper quilled flowers..

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  16. wow, they really look like fine art work Manju! I am looking at some pink cake ideas when I saw your post, as my little one is asking for one, now I am tempted to make a mini cake too !

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  17. They look cute Manju!! Nice way to pack a small edible gift for friends and family!!!

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  18. These mini cakes are marvelous! You are so creative!

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