Girls Christening Cake...

I made an open book Christening cake for a baby girl to celebrate her special day. I got some ideas of pictures I found off google and got to work.

I decided to go for a classic Christening cake, the open book style which is always lovely and symbolic for such an occasion.

In order to get the open book shape I used two disposable foil rectangular baking trays to cook two sponge cakes. I then sandwiched each sponge cake by cutting them in half and filling them with butter cream and jam. I then pushed the two cakes together and trimmed them so they were shaped more like a book.

I did this by using a carving knife to shape the top of the sponge cakes into an oval shape and cutting away at the centre to give it an arched appearance like the centre of a book. I then trimmed the outside edges to give them a straight even edge that matches on both sides of the cake.

I then crumb coated the cake to give it a nice smooth finish before icing it, spreading the coating evenly to follow the book shape.

After icing the cake, I used a smoother to give the icing a smooth even finish that moulds around the book shape. I went for a white a pink theme, nice and girly!

It was then time to add some some detail to the cake so I started with a flower corsage on one side of the cake, making three pink roses and adding some dainty rose leaves to add a little more colour.

I made a plait design for the book mark which gave the cake some character which was a lovely idea I got off the Internet.

On the other side of the cake I stencilled on a Holy cross and embossed it with a pattern to make it stand out.

I used a cocktail stick to gently make page lines at the bottom and the top of the cake to make the cake look more realistic and book like. This only needs to be done gently, if done too hard it can make the cake look scratched and could cause bits to peel away from the icing which might the look so do this very gently and don't dig the very end of the cocktail stick into the cake.. brush the cocktail stick along the cake rather than scratching the marks into it.



After doing this it was then time to add the personalised touches by adding a name and adding On Your Christening Day to the cake. Their are many personal messages you can put on a cake like this and some people like adding a date of birth or the date of the Christening but I was worried about overcrowding the cake so left these off.

The amount of detail you can add essential boils down the the size of the cake. Mine was about 12 x 10 so was an average size.

Open Book cakes can be used for many different occasions like Christenings, Holy Communions, Confirmations, Weddings, Anniversaries, Graduations.. the possibilities are endless!

I really enjoyed doing this style of cake and it will definitely be one I will do again for different occasions!

xoxox