Hi, So my twins’ third birthday is coming up on September 3rd!  Right now they are really into the alphabet, and Alexa gets excited when she sees an “A” and Zoe gets excited when she sees a “Z”.  So I thought for birthday cakes, it might be fun to just bake two layers, frost them, and decorate one with a large “A” and one with a large “Z”.  While this sounds ridiculously simple, I have no experience with cake decorating, so I’m not sure which material might be most fool-proof.  Should I try to work with rolled fondant, and use a stencil to cut out the letters and then move them to the cake?  Should I just use a stencil and sprinkle on some kind of colored sparkly sugar in the shape of the letter?  I looked at the chocolate disc, but I’m afraid with my limited experience working with chocolate, there are just too many risks of it cracking, splintering, etc.  I would appreciate any advice!  Thanks!

P.S. - Julie, I should have put this under Cake Q&A, but can’t figure out how to switch the message to the correct forum.  If you want to just delete this message, I am happy to repost under the correct section.  Thanks!

Hi, Loop!!!

One thought is using chocolate chips a la the banana chococlate stud cake to make the letter shapes.  You could also do a mosiac of crushed cookies or of chocolate spread thin, set, and then broken into pieces.

Hi Loopy- no problem to move the thread

Ooooo, three year-old twins and letters, how completely adorable!  You must be supermom to find time to bake.

I like Anne’s ideas, very appealing.

I think fondant will keep well if you’d like to try your hand at it.  You could make or get the stencil, color and roll it out ahead of time, so if you don’t like it you’ll still have time for other options, like using the stencil with colored sugar or sprinkles, etc.

If you’re feeling ambitious, you could bake sheet cakes and cut them into letter shapes, so that one cake is a large A and the other a large Z.  The corners, though, would be hard to frost.  If you were to cover the letter-shaped cakes in something they like- nuts, candy, sprinkles, chocolates, etc., then the difficult-to-frost shapes wouldn’t need to have perfect corners.

Can’t wait to see what you go with.

Oooh, and I like Julie’s ideas! Very appealing, indeed!!!!!!!

Fondant is great for letters.  It’s also great for coloring.  Also, as long as you have to buy letter cookie cutters to cut the fondant letters, you could skip the fondant and just make letter cut-out cookies.  I have done both ways, but for me, fondant is easier.  The simplest way if you don’t want to try to make your own fondant is to buy it in a tub at Michael’s.  It’s expensive to buy though.

Here are some examples of cakes I made using fondant lettering.  The large blue and yellow stars on top of the tiered cake are fondant too.

Thanks all—good to know that I have options!  I like the idea of cutting the cake into the letter, but am afraid it might crumble on me too much.  The texture of most of Rose’s cakes are so tender, that half the time I’m holding my breath even when slicing them in half, so I don’t know how good I’d be at carving out the middle of that A : )  never mind the frosting!  But hey, they are only 3, and at this age, pretty easy to please!  So I’m sure no matter what I do, it will be a hit for them anyway.  Thanks again for all of the suggestions and ideas!!

I haven’t done it- carving, that is- but I think it’s easier if the cake is cold and firm.

The texture of most of Rose’s cakes are so tender, that half the time I’m holding my breath even when slicing them in half, so I don’t know how good I’d be at carving out the middle of that A : )

Hey, loop, how about using BROWNIES as the toppers to cut!  Refrigerate them good, and they’ll be solid with easy-cutting sides!!!!!  I know having to eat brownies would be really disappointing to everyone, but sometimes everyone has to suffer for art!