My Sister's 30th Birthday Cake

A week after my boyfriend's birthday, it was my sister's birthday :) She turned the big 3 - 0! So obviously I decided to make her a cake in the shape of a '30' for her birthday BBQ. She wasn't too fussy about the flavour of the cake, so my mom suggested a pound cake as a lot of our family likes that. I mixed up her classic recipe by separating the eggs and whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks before mixing it into the batter. This made the cake less dense but kept the rich buttery flavour.

To make the '30', I doubled the recipe and filled 3 - 6" round tins and a loaf pan. I used two of the 6" rounds for the '3' and the other 6" round plus a bit of the loaf pan for the '0'.  I torted the cakes and used a circle cutter to cut out the centers.  This pick was taken before I removed some of the burnt parts on the '3'. :s  I did it in the toaster over, but with a tall cake, that gets pretty close to the element. 



A day before decorating the cake, I made a batch of Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC) and put it in the fridge.  When I was about to decorate, I realized I'd forgotten to let the icing defrost to room temperature :(  I thought I could just whip it to room temperature and ended up with a weird separated mix with a pool of liquid at the bottom of my mixing bowl.  Luckily, I kept whipping it for a few more minutes and it all came back together, but not exactly to the original consistency of the fresh batch.

I covered the cake with yellow tinted IMBC and started rolling out the fondant.  Decorating with fondant circles didn't actually take too long, attempting to get smooth IMBC, that was the difficult part, but I just strategically placed the fondant circles over the messier parts and I think it turned out pretty well.

The fondant was all coloured with Wilton's gel colours.  I did that a few days before decorating, because when I work colours into the fondant, I find it makes it quite wet and sticky, so resting for a few days makes it easier to roll out.    

My inspiration for this cake was:  Kendal - by The Pastry Studio.  I liked the style and colours, but changed them slightly and mixed it up with the shape.