3D Strawberry Cake

It's been quite a while since I got to make a proper 3D-carved, buttercream decorated cake. I've mostly been doing tiered fondant cakes with figurines, with a couple of carved Peppa Pig cars thrown in between. So I was really excited when I was asked to make a 3D strawberry cake! 

cute Strawberry Cake

The cake is Devil's Food Cake, filled with whipped dark chocolate ganache. (Funny that this "strawberry cake" wasn't made of strawberry cake...) I always dam each filling layer with some buttercream to make sure that the filling doesn't ooze out. I baked 5", 6", 7" & 8" cake layers instead of making them all 8" rounds and having lots of wastage from the carving process. 

stacking & dowelling

This cake was effectively a 2-tier cake, because after I stacked the first three layers, I added in support dowels and a cake board to support the next three layers. This is important so that the weight of the cake doesn't crush the layers below. 

6 layers, all stacked up

I really didn't have to do much carving to get a nice strawberry shape. I just used a serrated steak knife and rounded off the edges of the top few layers until I was happy with the shape. Then, I dirty iced the entire thing with red vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream and let it chill out in the fridge until it was firm. Don't ask me how much food colouring it took to get it this shade of red. I used SugarFlair's Extra Red concentrated food gel, and it still took quite a bit. 

carved & dirty-iced

Using a star piping tip, I went row by row, piping red buttercream stars 'til my hands were numb. I wonder if people get carpal tunnel syndrome from piping buttercream stars. I had to take a break after every 70 or so squeezes of the piping bag cuz my hand just couldn't take it! Plus, the heat from my hand was starting to melt the buttercream in the bag, so it was good to take breaks and let the buttercream firm up again. 

buttercream star piping

Once the entire cake had been covered in red buttercream, it was time for the leaves! Using cake scraps, I cut out 4 big leaves and placed them on top of the cake. I purposely left the central support dowel sticking out to be covered in green buttercream for the strawberry's "stem".

almost done!

cake leaves

The leaves and stem were covered in green buttercream. I didn't take a break this time and you can see where the buttercream got too warm from the heat from my hands and got all melty on the back leaf. (always pipe front to back so the best face of the cake is always facing forward. Haaa)

view from the top

Oh yes, and did I mention that this cake is actually modelled after the birthday girl's favourite Strawberry plush toy and not a strawberry fruit? That's why it has feet, arms and a face! The feet and arms are made out of cake scraps too. 

adding hands and feet

After putting the cake back in the fridge for a good couple of hours to let the buttercream get nice and firm, it was ready to have the final fondant details placed on it, just before heading to the party. 

view from the side

I cut big yellow circles out of fondant for the spots, and made the eyes and mouth out of fondant as well. I let all the fondant details dry until they were stiff so that they wouldn't lose its shape when placed on the cake, except the upper black line for the mouth. It was the last detail I made for the cake, rolling a thin black fondant snake out and sticking it on the cake after everything else had been stuck on, so that it can be nicely curved. 

fondant spots

smiley strawberry

The party was held on the rooftop of one of the boutique hotels downtown, with an excellent night view of the river district. Since it was an outdoor celebration, the fondant details immediately got shiny from condensation. Don't we just love the tropical, super humid weather here? But other than that, the cake held out and nothing slid out of place. The birthday girl was so happy to see her cake! She really really loves strawberries, and, she loved seeing her favourite plush toy, in cake form! 

Happy 21st Birthday, Ting Wei!