Beer Tray Cake with "Beer" Jelly cups

I knew exactly what kind of cake I wanted to make my hubby for his 35th birthday. I've been wanting to try making "beer" jelly ever since I saw a post on Facebook. And what's more perfect than putting these "beer" jelly shooters atop a beer tray cake? 

My hubby's beer tray cake, with beer jelly shooters!

The "beer" jelly shooters are really really easy to make! All you need to do is melt some gelatin in clear apple juice, whisk it like mad to get it to foam up, and then pour into cute little glasses and put them in the fridge to set for at least one hour. It's funny cuz I actually had to pour the foamy jelly carefully into the shooter cups, tilting the cups like one would do when pouring real beer into a glass!

making "beer" jelly shooters

the foam on top makes it look like the real thing!

The cake is a chocolate rum and raisin cake, with a rum Swiss meringue buttercream filling. I used Bacardi light rum for the cake and frosting, but one can definitely use a dark rum for more flavour.

applying the edible image on the cake

I covered the cake with navy blue fondant (mixed blue Satin ice fondant with a little black fondant) using the wrap around method, and added an edible image print on top to make it look like a real beer tray!

beer tray cake!

There is actually a thin cake board under the edible image on top of the cake, to help support the weight of all the beer jelly cups I was afraid that without this board, the jelly cups would slowly start sinking into the cake. 

fondant lettering around the cake

To finish the cake, I cut out letters for the wording on the outside of the cake, sticking them on with a little bit of water. 

make a wish!

My husbands was so happy when he saw the cake. For a second, he thought that I had ordered an entire tray of actual hard liquor shooters from the bar for him! He was so surprised and had a look of glee in his face when he found out that the whole thing was cake! And the other diners at the restaurant had such big smiles on their faces when they saw the cake too! They couldn't believe it was cake! My husbands friends were actually more interested in taking pictures of the cake than eating it! Haa!

perfect cake for the big 3-5

beer jelly, anyone?

Anyway, after we sang happy birthday to my hubby and he had made a wish a blew out the candle, everyone first enjoyed their refreshing apple jelly "beer" and then had a slice of cake! The edible image tasted surprisingly of coconut! (I removed the thin cake board under the edible image and placed the edible image back on top of the cake before cutting the cake up)

Prost!

slice of chocolate rum & raisin cake

My hubby definitely had fun at his "beer" themed party celebration, held at a German restaurant, nonetheless! Reliving the good times we had in Deutschland! I even made him a beer "cake" tower as a birthday present!!  Alles Gute zum Geburstag, mein Schatz!

Happy 35th Birthday!