Have you always wanted to make a cake decorated with sugar paste but thought it was too difficult?
Here you will find some instructions to make one at home, with a little patience and a lot of imagination.
In general, sugar paste cakes are made with a soft cake dough as a base filled (or not) with cream or jam. In fact, these cakes must be compact enough to be covered and decorated with sugar paste.
The recipe and photos you find in this article are from my friend Daniela, who passionately makes magnificent decorated cakes (one more beautiful than the other!), if you want to contact her you can do so at this email address at Natale.daniela@gmail.com
Ingredients for the basic cake:
Chocolate cake (1 tier cake)
- 4 eggs
- 200 g sugar
- 250 g mascarpone
- 150 g flour
- 50 g bitter cocoa
- 16 g baking powder
- optional: jam of your choice for filling
- Sugar paste in various colors – if possible buy it already rolled out in the colors suitable for making your cake, always keep some icing sugar on hand. If you want to make the sugar paste at home you can find the instructions here.
- Decorations: Sugar pearls, marshmallows, sweets, sugar flowers, ribbons and small cake gadgets in line with your project.
Chocolate cake: beat the whole eggs with the sugar for a long time with an electric whisk, until you get a light and frothy mixture (that writes). It will take at least a good 10 minutes.
Add the mascarpone and continue to whip with the whisk. Once the mascarpone is mixed, add a little at a time, always whipping, the flour and cocoa sifted together with the sachet of yeast. You will obtain a soft and homogeneous mixture, if it is too dry add a little milk.
Pour the mixture into your buttered and floured 24 cm mold and put in a fan oven at 170 ° C for at least 40-45 minutes (without opening the oven). Once cooked (do the toothpick test) let it cool completely. At this point cut off any “hill” that has formed during cooking with a knife so as to have a flat cake. If you want, cut the dough in half and fill with a little jam (I recommend apricots) and let everything stabilize well.
Take the base where you will place the cake and turn the cake over gently, placing the bottom of the cake facing up, the one that has been shaped by the bottom of the cake pan.
Coating: At this point, take the sugar paste already rolled out and place it on the cake to cover it (if you need to roll it out further, use a rolling pin on a surface dusted with a little icing sugar). There will be some excess paste but don’t worry, you will have to roll it out and adapt it slowly with your hands (help yourself with a spatula) until you remove all the folds and have a smooth and uniform coating and remove the excess sugar paste.
Find a short video that shows you the steps and some little tricks https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nML3RQstzsA
When you become more experienced you can add other layers to the cake, which are usually made by covering a polystyrene shape with sugar paste (they are sold in pastry shops or on Amazon) and fixing it in the center with hidden toothpicks.
Decorations:
Once the cake is covered, use the rest of the sugar paste (of different colors) to make decorations, you can have fun but I recommend you initially make simple things.
Even with just strips you can make impressive cakes: by making a border on the bottom with a ribbon with a bow, or you can cut the sugar paste with cookie cutters of your favorite shapes or make the letters of the name or a personalized message. At the base of the cake you can also fix one or more beautiful fabric ribbons that you will then fix with toothpicks, you will see that the cake will already have a well-finished appearance.
In the first phase I suggest you buy some small subjects and decorations, candles, standing decorations to enrich your cake and get a WOW effect! Online you can find some very nice things at reasonable prices.
When you become more expert you can model the sugar paste to create flowers, leaves and even small subjects (it requires a lot of manual skill, so go step by step). Have faith in your abilities and don’t be discouraged, with a little patience and a lot of imagination you can make beautiful cakes.
Find below some other creations by my friend Daniela… isn’t she very super?
