So, this week has been a very exciting and busy week for a lot of reasons. This week’s blog will be centred around a beautiful mermaid cake I had the pleasure of making. I think it might be one of my favourite ones yet. I thought it would be good for a quick catch up, at the start of this week I also made a Minecraft cake. Now I don’t know that much about Minecraft but I was so pleased with how the cake turned out. There will be a picture at the bottom of this blog, but I was sad enough to count the number of squares on it, 207 to be precise, but I even loved the figures. They are certainly out of my comfort zone but the cake was very well received. Then on Tuesday it was my birthday and said hello to my twenties. I just had to make myself a birthday cake. I’ve never made my own cake before and I had zero ideas. In the end I went with a simple purple toned type cake with some pearls. I was so happy with how the cake worked out and I had a great birthday. I’ll put some photos at the end with the Minecraft cake. After some lovely birthday celebrations including my first in a pub since lockdown, let’s get back to this mermaid cake.
I always like to do my research and combine cake ideas to make them original. I knew when I was first asked I just had to get some moulds to make tails and shells. I made my cakes the day before along with the tails. It’s been a running joke in our house that since I’ve come home from uni I’ve been using the oven a lot. Well this week something finally went wrong with it leading to us having to buy a new oven. I jokingly said it was a nice birthday present, but was more concerned how I was going to make the cakes. Thankfully I got them baked it wrapped them in clingfilm until the next morning. I made 3 cakes each with 175g self raising flour, sugar, butter,3 eggs and 1 teaspoon of baking powder and vanilla. The tails were a stress though, I wanted to do them the day before to make sure they were ready. I’d originally planned to make them out of fondant but even after a tip from a friend I couldn’t get them to work. My last attempt was to use white chocolate. This worked perfectly and I dusted the shells with gold lustre and they were so effective. For the tails I used melted pink candy melts and dusted the ends of the tails with gold. I also made some seaweed using fondant, I rolled some green fondant out and then slightly flattened it. I then twisted it and left it to harden overnight.
I’m known for getting carried away with time, so got up early enough to allow plenty of time to decorate it. When I started in the morning I had no idea how I was going to decorate the top of it. My cakes always just end up coming together so I had plenty of faith. I made some buttercream using 500g butter and 1kg icing sugar but had to make a little extra for the top. I stacked my cakes with jam and buttercream and did a crumb coat. I let it chill for 20 minutes in the fridge. At this point I did some last minute inspiration hunting and settled on my plan. I coloured some buttercream pink, purple and blue. I added another layer of buttercream and added some of the coloured buttercream randomly on the cake. I then just smoothed this out and it created a really nice colour on the cake.
Once the side were smooth enough I added the seaweed decorations and two tails on the cake around the front. In between the seaweed I placed some edible pearls and they gave a really subtle effect. The last part was the top of the cake using the same blue, pink and purple colours I filled three piping bags with a 2D, 32 tip and an open star nozzle. I then just piped randomly on top of the cake alternating the patterns and the colours. I added my gold shells and then stood two tails up using toothpicks for support. To finish the cake off I added a mermaid topper I ordered. I left this one so close to when it was being picked up but I was honestly so happy with how it worked out. I don’t usually openly like the cakes I’ve made and generally always pick fault. With that being said yes there is stuff on this cake that could be better but that didn’t matter to me because I just loved how it worked out. I think it’s the top of the cake that made me like it so much.
It’s been a busy week for me this week but I’ve loved every minute. I’m looking forward to a few days without any cake but I am looking forward to using the new oven. Coming back to the birthday cake I made myself when my friends came over last weekend, the cake just had to have a little photo shoot, so I’ll leave you with some of those beauties. I hope you have a lovely weekend and enjoyed reading about how I made this mermaid cake.
Lots of love,
Hannah xx
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