LDS Spanish Baptism Cake

This cake was a suggestion from my husband. There was a Spanish family who was getting baptized in our church. My husband encouraged me to make them a cake for the baptism. Since it wasn't a commission, I had a lot of freedom of design. But since they were Spanish speakers, I wanted to do something that celebrates that. Keep in mind that I don't speak Spanish even a little bit, so I could only hope that Google translate didn't let me down.

I decided to make this cake vegan chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganache. Any particular reason? Not really. I just had some leftover dark chocolate ganache in the freezer and thought it went best with chocolate cake.

I started out a couple days beforehand cutting out the words from a slightly orangy-yellow fondant. I used a fondant press mold to cut out the letters for the words El Libro de Mormon, plus accent over the o, and the date of the baptism. Then I used my tap it alphabet to cut out the words for Congratulations in Spanish, Felicidades. At least, I hope that's spelled right.

 After the letters were dry, I painted them with gold luster dust mixed with alcohol to make them gold instead of orangy-yellow. I gave them two coats of edible paint, letting them dry in between.

 Then, I covered my cake board in plastic wrap to protect it and stuck the first layer of chocolate cake down with ganache. Then I filled the cake with ganache.

 I added the second layer and frosted the cake with ganache as well. Then I cleaned up my cake board and put the cake in the fridge to chill for half an hour.

 But, I had also made a thin layer of 6 inch square chocolate cake that I trimmed to be about book sized and frosted in ganache.

 Then I let this small cake chill in the fridge as well.

 While the cakes were chilling, I realized to my chagrin, that I didn't have nearly as much white fondant as I thought I did. I mixed what was left from my last package, added a small 100g package, then kneaded in a small package of vanilla flavored fondant, which was more ivory colored than white. The combination was more off-white than true white, so I added some white food coloring, which helped a tiny bit.

 Then, I wanted dark blue for the book on top, but all I had was more of a deep sky blue. So, I added a small amount of black, which grayed the blue down to a blue-gray.

 And, I added more blue food coloring to deepen the blue.

 The end result wasn't as dark as I was hoping for, but it didn't look bad, either. So, I decided it was good enough for the book.

 Then, I rolled out the white fondant nice and big and covered the round cake with it.

 I smoothed it down with my fondant smoother and my hands and trimmed off the excess with a knife.

 Then I set aside the round cake and worked on the book for a bit. I started out rolling out a strip of white fondant and cutting it to the height of the book cake.

 Then I carefully wrapped it around the book covering three sides.

 Afterwards, I rolled out the blue color and cut it to cover the top of the book and the fourth side.

 Then I draped the rectangle of blue fondant over the book cake.

 Using another piece of cardboard, I flipped the book over.

 And trimmed the overhang of blue to be close to the book.

 Then I flipped the book back over.

 I brushed a bit of edible glue on the bottom edge of the book and used the excess blue fondant to press it into the book to form the bottom cover.

 Using a sharp paring knife, I trimmed the bottom cover to be about the same amount of overhang as the top cover, rounding the corners.

 This is what it looked like when I was done.

 I carefully picked up the book and placed it on the cake. Some of the bottom cover fondant stuck to the cardboard a bit and had to be pried off.

 I cleaned up the edges of the book with the back of the knife blade and used it to tuck the edges under.

 Then, using my ruler, I gently marked a few guide lines to make the words straight.

 Then I placed my words to read El Libro de Mormon, sticking them on with edible glue and centering them by starting in the middle of each word.

 It looked very similar to the google image I found.

 Then I included the date under the book.

 Then, using edible glue to stick it on the side of the cake, I placed the word Felicidades around the side of the cake, beginning in the middle of the word.

At this point, I took a break and chilled the cake.

 When my husband saw it in the fridge, he thought it was finished. If you want something nice and clean, you could stop here.

 But I wanted just a bit more. I marbled a bit of white fondant with some gray.

 And rolled it out, allowing the marbling to show through.

 And I used a few sizes of dove cutters to make some lovely gray doves.

 I placed them around the cake, filling in the white spaces as evenly as I could, sticking them on with edible glue.

 Then, I debated using gold or silver sugar pearls around the bottom, but the gold ones weren't the same color as the gold I used on the words, so I opted for silver instead. I stuck them on with edible glue around the bottom of the cake.

 I think it turned out really lovely and is perfectly appropriate for a baptism.

 The doves remind me of the Holy Ghost and the Book of Mormon on the top a reminder of the new faith.

 The date immortalized on the cake.

 The gold and silver lending a touch of class and celebration.

 Congratulations on your baptism!

 

 

To watch the whole process on our YouTube channel, click here: https://youtu.be/VEwbx5a-4MI
Um das ganze Prozess auf unserer YouTube Sendung zu schauen, klickt hier: https://youtu.be/FAT6S7xlOXw