Savvy tips for pulling together a sweet showstopper birthday cake for less
JUSTIN Bieber celebrated his birthday this week – no doubt with a huge cake worthy of the star.
But you don’t need the budget of a celeb to pull together a sweet showstopper centrepiece.
MAKE IT COUNT: A birthday cake in the shape of a number has wow factor and can be adapted to suit almost anyone.
You will need a cake board to serve your creation — The Range has different sizes starting from £1.49.
Then use Swiss rolls to mould the shape of the number needed.
Aldi sells raspberry jam or chocolate rolls for £1.05 each.
The number eight can be a little tricky — break up the roll where needed and use a knife to curve out the edges.
Slather thick buttercream icing over your Swiss roll. It’s easy enough to make frosting by beating together icing sugar and butter at a ratio of two to one. Or a tub of Sainsbury’s ready-made vanilla icing is £1.60.
Finish by decorating the numbers. For kids’ cakes, chocolate buttons and hundreds and thousands work, or Hobbycraft sells edible glitter at £2.50 a pot.
PIMP YOUR CAKE: Decorating your own cake is an easy way to impress for less.
Find a large plain cake to suit your taste and party size.
Sainsbury’s Seriously Chocolate Cake, £12.50, serves 20. Or for a bigger crowd Asda’s celebration fruit cake, £19, serves 34.
You can create a personalised edible cake topper with a photo and text of your choice from around £5 on both Etsy and Amazon.
Or spell out your own personal message with edible letters. Try Dr Oetker white chocolate letters and numbers, £2.85, from Sainsbury’s.
Large personalised pop-out cake toppers look glamourous and cost around £2.50 from eBay.
Or for a child’s cake, add little toy figures suited to your theme.
For example, small dinosaurs look great on top of a cake.
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