Manchester United Confirmation Cake! - Norway Edition

I've been meaning to post this for ages, so apologies for that... I actually haven't blogged in a month which is ridiculous! Anyway,  earlier this month my cousin, Thomas, in Norway got confirmed. This is big business in Norway and a huge life event, not to mention a great excuse to get everyone together, dress up and eat until we're sick...God I love my family.

I made a cake for my other cousin's confirmation 2 years ago so of course I couldn't not make him a special cake too, and to be honest, knowing how much he loves this team...there was no way it could be anything other than a Manchester United cake. Now I have made a Macnhester United cake before, and I did the whole logo out of fondant, never again! It was such a pain, so I cheated and got it printed with a message onto an icing sheet. And as I only have an afternoon in which to decorate it once unpacking the already baked cake from my bag, messing around with all of that fondant would have been a nightmare. A bit of trivia, Norway rarely use fondant, mainly marzipan. I did find a 1kg pack of fondant in a shop once...for £10...so I decided to bring my own funnily enough.

So for the cake, as I said I baked the cake here the night before and then leveled it, clingfilmed it and wrapped it up in a cake tin ready for the flight. Luckily it got through without it being ripped apart under smuggling suspicion. When we got all the way there I couldn't have left it more than an hour before getting started. I iced it in chocolate buttercream and white fondant. I also brought with me red fondant I got in Tesco so I didn't have to worry about colouring it there is someone else's kitchen and ruining their worktops. So the icing sheet, I actually ordered it through eBay with my own personalised message on it, it was so easy to use I wouldn't hesitate to order more. I simply cut it out, very the surface and smoothed it on, it did say I'd need edible glue....but I didn't read that part so didn't pack any - and water worked fine.



I then cut out red fondant stripes to go vertically around the cake, piped white royal icing around the base and tied a red bow around the middle with a nice big bow.  It's difficult to make a cake like this for a boy without making it too 'pretty' but I think I got the right look. Anyway the cake was a big hit, he didn't know I was making it so that was a nice surprise, there's a whole table full of cakes at every confirmation so it was lovely to be able to contribute to it :).

The party after the confirmation was really great, I'm too awkward and British in these situations and don't always follow Norwegian protocol with introducing myself etc so I probably looked really rude and I can be really aware of how rubbish my grammar can be which sometimes makes conversation with people who come from outside of Oslo difficult as the dialects are really broad and I can struggle. But I knew most people and got to catch with everyone, take lots of silly pics and stuff my face - so all was well.

 

I also managed to stock up on some amazing goodies I don't get here, thousands of calories worth...most of which is gone already...whoops!


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Manchester United Giant Cupcake

I've been meaning to put up this post all week, so here it finally is! This cake was actually part of the wedding order I had for last weekend but felt it needed its own post.

While the cake pops were for the wedding, this cake was actually a present for the usher in the wedding which I thought was very sweet. The theme for this one was Manchester United, I've done a couple of football cakes but not a giant cupcake so it was a good challenge.

I always make a stencil when doing these jobs it makes it so much easier and the proportions much more realistic. I'm tempted to try to pipe it next time with royal icing has anyone else done this?
I left the cut out fondant for a couple of nights to dry out and then piped on the lettering when I actually positioned it on the cake, I always find piping lettering scary even though it always worked out fine - madness.

So keeping the top buttercream light I coloured the bottom with an absurd amount of Christmas Red colouring paste, in fact I had to emergency order some more from eBay the day before as I used so much! And I'm sure you can see how I finished it off like most of my giant cupcakes...with a bow! I do worry when using a ribbon for boys cakes but as there's loads of ribbons in football, on the cups etc I'm sure it's fine.

I like doing giant cupcakes that are a bit different from the norm and as this was my first football team one I think it turned out really well...I wonder what my next giant cupcake will turn out to be I've had some great ones this year so far :D Pin It Now!