Coolest Harley Birthday Cake

This cake was for my co-worker and best friend’s birthday. I love watching Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes. I also love learning new things so I decided to try and take a swing at using fondant. First time ever and I wasn’t too keen on doing it.

I only had one size cake pan which was a 9”. I baked two white cakes from good ol’ Betty Crocker and when they cooled off I used a circle to cut the top cake smaller. I sliced both cakes in half and used buttercream icing. I did a dirty icing first and then added more, then put both in the fridge to harden.

During the baking and the hardening of the cakes I prepared the fondant. I kneaded the white fondant to where it was pliable. I used a roller so that the fondant spread out to ¼”, got the bottom cake out and laid the fondant over the cake. I smoothed it out with a fondant smoother and tried to get all the creases out. I used a knife to cut away the excess fondant. I put that one back in the fridge and repeated the same steps for the top layer.

While they were in the fridge I started on the black and orange fondant balls. I took enough to make a pea size ball but my son was helping and no 2 were the same size. Once the balls were done, I took the cakes out and put cake doules in the bottom layer and plopped the top layer on those. I iced the balls with a little bit of icing so they would stick around the edges.

I also bought cake markers and traced the Harley logo onto the fondant. That didn’t work too well because the cake was sweating. During this whole time the cake was periodically going back into the fridge because it was too hot. I used black and orange icing for the outline on top. The flames are made out of orange red and yellow fondant that I rolled together and made to look tie-dye. I rolled that to ¼” – some were a little thicker than others- and used a knife to cut the flames out. Once I had enough I covered some of the “oops” on the cake. The bike was from the dollar store.

Everyone loved this homemade Harley birthday cake but did mention that the fondant was “chewy”. I personally didn’t care for the fondant but everything else tasted great. I found a recipe to make your own marshmallow fondant which I heard tastes a lot better then the box fondant like Wilton which is what I used. That will be my next adventure.


3 thoughts on “Coolest Harley Birthday Cake”

  1. The cake is fabulous, Becky…I’m so glad you are going to use this talent and take some classes this summer. Looks like you’ll be headed to the top of the class!
    Love you!

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  2. I have had the problem with the cake sweating. It’s because the cake is cold from being in the fridge and then setting it in room temperature. You can leave it in room temperature the whole time. It’s not necessary to refrigerate your cake unless you have a perishable filling, such as custard. Fondant and buttercream are just fine to leave out. Looks great! Keep up the good work! :)

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