Phil’s Present Cake and Cupcakes

This was my first Gift Box Cake. It looked so real that the waiter at the restaurant asked me to remove the ribbon so he could cut the cake! He didn’t believe that it was all edible and made by me… that was an inspiring moment!

I went with a whole black and white theme for my husband’s birthday and made him this awesome chocolate gift box cake plus a dozen black and white choc-coffee mud cupcakes with white icing and black stars.

So as this was in the early days, I relied on some videos on YouTube to learn how to make a gift box bow. One series of videos in particular was wonderful and showed me step by step how to do it and I was surprised at how easy it was. (Note the videos are by ExpertVillage on YouTube and are not numbered in order so it takes a long time to work out which one goes where… I have placed them in order for you below.)

I made the loops of my bow several days in advance so they could dry in the right shape following the video instructions. The only problem with that was that when I had to assemble the whole thing, the pieces were not easily slotted into place because they wouldn’t meld to the other shapes. In hindsight, I would have left them only for a couple of hours to dry before putting them on the cake so they were still soft. Lesson learnt!

I didn’t have any fancy equipment for this – just needed a knife and some paper towel. I cut some strips of the same length, and folded them in half, then trimmed the ends into a 90 degree point. This is so all the pieces fit in nicely like a puzzle without overlapping when placing them on the cake. I slotted some paper towel scrunched up into the loop and left them to dry.

Once the cake was covered in the white fondant I put a fresh strip of black fondant across the top and sides of the cake, running each direction and placed my bow on top.

The cupcakes I made were a new recipe of choc-coffee mud and were in black cupcake cases with white polka dots. I did white icing (refer to my Best Kept Secrets of the Cake Decorating Pro’s e-book for how to make it) and black stars on sticks for the decorations. Simple but striking!