letter | Fancy Flours: Where Bakers Bloom

Number Cake, Letter Cake, Monogram Cake…Whatever you call them, we are in love with these trendy layered cakes topped with fruit, flowers, macarons, meringues and icing!

Letter cakes are trending all over the internet and we have the PERFECT Cake Pan Set for them! These fresh and fruity desserts are fun to look at, even more fun to make and super delicious! Now that Wilton has come out with this Countless Celebrations Cake Pan Set you no longer have to blow up and trace letter and numbers to make your cakes!

Use this pan to bake cakes shaped like letters from A to Z and numbers 0 to 9, a perfect plus sign, exclamation points, questions marks, and dollar signs.

– Create unique cake shapes in letters, numbers and more
– Unique grid guide pattern helps keep batter in place
– Cake cutter trim cake into clean, angled edges for easy decorating
– Includes inserts to make letters A to Z, numbers 0 to 9, an exclamation point, question mark and dollar sign
– Full instructions included
– Measures 14.5 x 9 inches

Letter Cake – Tips for Success

From Fancy Flours’ employees Maureen (baking) and Heather & Janet (decorating)!

Preparing your pan: The Wilton Countless Celebrations pan is very easy to use, even for a non-baker like me (Maureen). To create a two-layer letter cake, grease the pan and inserts with Crisco, then dust it with flour. Dust every inch of the pan for an easy release of your cake.

How much cake: One box cake mix will yield 4 cups of batter. We used 2 cups for each layer of the letter cake.

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Filling your pan: After positioning the inserts in the pan to create the number or letter of your choice (easy to follow diagrams included with pan) pour half the of the batter (2 cups) into the pan and distribute evenly with a spatula. ** Be sure to fill in the corners, so you get a level cake end to end.

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Time & Temp: We baked the cake at 350°F for about 14 minutes. Cool cake for 5 to 8 minutes, then gently loosen the edges of the cake with a flat spatula. Invert on to parchment lined cookie sheet and tap gently to release. After fully cooled, place in the freezer until you are ready to decorate. Freezing helps keep the layers together and aids in the process of moving the finished cake to a serving platter.

Layer #2:Repeat above instructions for the 2nd layer.

Decorating Prep Work: Shop for a variety of flowers, fruits, cookies and candy that matches your theme.

Prepare your butter cream and refrigerate overnight. Remove from refrigerator about 15 minutes before you are ready to decorate. (Butter cream should be a tad cooler than room temperature). Prep and fill your piping bag with a Wilton 1A tip. Fill a second bag with pink frosting and a Wilton tip #1M

Assembling the Cake: Plan out the spacing of your dollops of frosting before you get started. We used the grid pattern that transferred from the cake pan to the cake as our guideline. It is personal choice how much or how little to pipe – you just want dollops to show on the edges of the cake.

Squeeze the piping bag with consistent pressure making sure that the tip is directly on top of the dollop to keep the peaks standing upright. Using consistent spacing, cover the bottom layer with soft dollops of frosting. Add the top layer of cake and repeat the icing process using even spacing. We found that looking at the dollops on the bottom layer helped us with the spacing.

Think Random: Your instinct would be to place the decorations in an orderly pattern, yet random is best. We placed the raspberries and strawberries on the cake in all random places and filled in the blank spaces with the flowers, and cookies. NOTE: Each of the flowers stems were cut to about 1” and wrapped in tinfoil before poking into the cake.

We decorated with fresh raspberries and strawberries, Macarons, and fresh flowers. In addition, we randomly piped pink flowers with the # 1M tip.

To Print the PDF version click HERE.

Watch a Video Tutorial from Wilton

Fit to a T Letter Cake Tutorial

One pan, many possibilities! Get inspiration from our Monogram Cake Pinterest Board!

Guest Post by Fancy Flours Employee Lindsey K.

Welcome back to the third installment of our Springerle Series! This post will cover three mediums that you can use to top cookies in beautiful molded designs – modeling chocolate, fondant and marzipan. This is a super quick and easy way to take your cookies to the next level for wedding favors, birthdays, holiday gifts or just a sweet treat for a special someone.

If you missed our previous posts on how to craft with Springerle molds, see them here: Casting and Papercasting. As a quick review, Springerle cookies have been used to depict everything from biblical images to daily life since the 16th century. While the molds were originally used to make dense, cake-like cookies (see our recipe here!), they have advanced to be useful in crafting as well.

Our molds are made by House on the Hill of an heirloom quality wood and composite mix. Most of their images are casts of vintage molds and others are of their own design.

Before making our toppers for this tutorial, we pre-made cookies using our Gingerbread recipe. This recipe is fabulous for not only its taste, but for holding its shape. You could also use our No-Fail Sugar Cookie Recipe. We took note of the sizes of our molds and used cutters to make cookies just slightly larger.

We also pre-made our modeling chocolate, which is a surprisingly simple recipe from House on the Hill. You can also buy chocolate-flavored, white or colored fondant at most craft and baking stores. Or if you prefer to make your own, here’s a recipe from Allrecipes! And for you sweet almond lovers, you can simply use Marzipan from your grocery store.

I will show images using both the modeling chocolate (in brown) and fondant (in white). If you choose to use marzipan, you will follow the fondant instructions.

Ingredients/ Utensils

Modeling chocolate, fondant or marzipan
Cocoa powder (if using modeling chocolate)
Powdered sugar (if using fondant or marzipan)
Corn Syrup
Springerle mold
Cookies cut and baked in the shape of your mold
2 Pastry brushes
Spatula
Small dish (for cocoa powder or powdered sugar)
Cooling rack (if using modeling chocolate)
Pastry prep mat (optional)
Luster or disco dust (optional)
Small food-safe paint brush (optional)

Directions

1. Workspace prep: On a flat surface, lay down your Pastry Prep Mat or wax paper to protect your surface and keep your area clean. Fill a small dish with your dusting powder (either cocoa or powdered sugar) and set near your pastry mat with a clean, dry pastry brush. Set your modeling chocolate, fondant or marzipan in a bowl near your space for easy access. Set out your cooling racks if using modeling chocolate.

2. Dip your pastry brush in cocoa (for chocolate) or powdered sugar (for fondant or marzipan) and dust your Springerle mold so it has an thick, even coating throughout the design. The pastry brush is great for this as it won’t clog up the deeper areas.

3. Lay your dusted mold face up on your pastry mat. Pull a ball of your topper medium from the bowl. It will need to be enough to fill the mold and a little extra to go over the edges.

Fancy tip: Your modeling chocolate should be the consistency of Play-Doh or perhaps even a touch harder. If it seems too soft or is sticking in your mold, flatten the ball into a pancake and refrigerate for 5-10 minutes.

4. Using your hands, press your medium into the mold. Be sure to push firmly to fill the deeper parts of the design.

5. When you feel the mold is adequately filled, flatten the back of your medium with a spatula. Press the topping to be quite thin unless you love a lot of chocolate or fondant on your cookies. 🙂

Fancy tip: If your spatula is sticking to your chocolate or fondant, dust with cocoa or powdered sugar, respectively.

6. Turn your Springerle mold upside down with your medium still in it. Use gravity (and some light taps on the table) to release it. Release time may be longer for deeper molds.

7. Trim any extra with a knife or spatula and return to your bowl for re-use. You could also use a cookie cutter sized to your mold (we have many available here).

8. For modeling chocolate only: Set your finished topper on a cooling rack to dry until firm (approximately 2 hours). You can make these ahead of time and keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 month.

9. Repeat steps 2-8 for as many toppers as you need. Be sure to dust the mold before every press for all options.

10. To adhere the toppers to your cookies, brush a thin layer of corn syrup on the back of your topper and set on your cookie. Let dry for at least 10 minutes.

11. For a fancy touch, “paint” your topper with luster dust. You will not need to mix the luster dust with anything for this project. It should stick directly onto your medium. We used Super Green and Old Gold. See all our Luster and Disco Dust colors here!

Display in a cute container for decoration or wrap in a simple polypropylene bag with a ribbon to hand out to friends and family. To create the snow effect on our Pinewood Cabin cookie, I dusted it with powdered sugar instead of the cocoa.