If you're planning a tropical, Hawaiian luau-style birthday party, you have several cake decorating options to choose from. Modern cake decorating tools-of-the-trade allow for a lot of flexibility. Everything from molded pans to spray frosting tint can help you make a professional-looking cake without spending your weekends in cake-decorating classes. Does this Spark an idea?
Dashboard Dancer
Many people are familiar with the dashboard hula girl with the bobble hips. A popular Hawaiian souvenir, she can be ordered online and used as a cake topper. Frost the cake with a butter cream frosting, in a sandy shade of tan or yellow, and press her into the top of the cake. You can simulate the texture of sand with vanilla wafers. Just grind a few up in the blender and sprinkle them onto the cake. A ring of birthday candles around the edge of the cake can be just like tiki torches.
Molded Pineapple Cake
At specialty cake stores, you can get a molded pineapple cake pan. Bake the cake as directed and turn it over onto a cookie sheet, a serving tray or a piece of cardboard covered in aluminum foil. The cake will have embossed lines that delineate the crisscrossed sections of the pineapple as well as the wide blades that make up the leaves. Frost the bottom with a tan-yellow shade of frosting and the leaves with green. Press a knife into the center of each "square" on the pineapple's body, and bring the frosting up to a point. Then, use a can of brown spray frosting to create depth by misting the body of the pineapple gently from the bottom. For the leaves, cover them all in a deep green and then use a piping bag with a small round tip to add a slightly lighter shade of green to the upper edges and tip of each blade. Blend slightly with the side of a knife.
Tiki Head Cake
To make this cake you'll need to bake two round cake layers. Stack them together between layers of butter cream frosting. Frost the entire surface with a light brown frosting, then cover with stripes of darker brown frosting. Use a wide-toothed comb and long strokes to define a wood grain on all surfaces of the cake. Draw the features of the tiki face on top of the cake with a toothpick and apply brightly colored frosting from a piping tube to "paint" the face.
Tags: brown frosting, butter cream, butter cream frosting, cake with, cream frosting, spray frosting