As the weather gets cooler in my part of the world, I feel the urge to do some baking – it’s a perfect time of year to make cakes and cupcakes, and decorate them with spray-on food coloring. And with the creative application of stencils, I can create baked goods with gaming themes. And so, as it turns out, can you.
Cost: variable. Supplies for one simple gamer cake can be purchased for under $10 US. More complex cakes and/or multiple cakes will, naturally, require greater expenditures.
Time: decorating an already-baked cake takes a few minutes – baking times will depend on what sort of cake you’re making.
Skill level: this craft is easy for beginners to pick up, and can be made more challenging for more experienced crafters.
Equipment:
- A cake to decorate, either light-colored to begin with, or frosted with light-colored icing (for the project in this tutorial, I made a red velvet cake and frosted it with vanilla frosting). Cake from a boxed mix will work perfectly
- Spray-on food coloring in a color or colors appropriate to your chosen design. Check the cake decorating section in your local craft store, or the baking aisle at the grocery store
- A stencil, either store-bought or handmade
- Baker’s parchment paper
- Paper towels
Get your ingredients together, prepare your cake, if necessary, and get ready to make a bit of an edible mess.
Step 1: Prepare the cake
If you’ve just made and/or frosted your cake, be sure to give it plenty of time to cool, and to allow any frosting to harden slightly. This will help keep your design from smearing or running.
Decide where you want to place your stencil, and use parchment paper to mask off areas of the cake that you don’t want colored.
For this tutorial, I decided to use a pre-made plastic stencil to create a pirate-themed cake that’d make a great treat for players of a swashbuckling adventure game. If you can’t find a stencil that you want to use, or if you want more of a challenge, you can always try creating your own, too.
Step 2: Spray on color
Shake the spray-on food coloring vigorously, and practice sweeping it in smooth arcs of color on a paper towel for a moment or two. Be careful – food coloring will wipe off many kitchen surfaces, but will readily stain others, as well as any skin it comes in contact with. When you’ve got the technique down, spray the area of your cake that you intend to color.
Step 3: Remove stencil
If there’s a lot of food coloring pooling on the surface of your stencil, blot at it very carefully with a paper towel. Then remove the stencil, lifting straight up from the cake as much as possible to prevent smearing.
Enjoy your gamer cake!
Other ideas
In addition to experimenting with color and stencil combinations, you can also have some fun with the different shapes of cake and cupcake pans that are available. The cupcakes shown below were made with white cake mix in triangular cupcake pans, a hand-made triangle stencil, and yellow spray-on food coloring.
What ideas for creative gamer cakes can you come up with?
Tags: gaming goods
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