Christmas Gift Box Cake

I made this cake for a 200+ people Christmas party. We only finished the bottom two tiers.

For equipment, I bought Wilton square cake pan set that includes 16", 12", and 8" square cake pans. I originally planned to use the 16" as base layer, then realized it would be too big and heavy to handle. In additional, the biggest heavy duty cake base I could found is 16" square. So I used the 12" as the base layer, even that, the final cake probably weight more than 30 pounds. It was difficult to carry by one man. Now I understand why wedding cakes are moved around  on a cart. It is definitely necessary.

Prepare Fondant and Fondant Bow

Here is Marshmallow Fondant recipe. In order to make deep red, I first made white fondant and then knead in a whole 1 oz bottle of Wilton Gel Color, the fondant became crumby and flaky. I tried to save it by adding water, light corn syrup, and all attempts failed. At the end, I gave up and did a new batch. This time, I mixed the Wilton gel color in the melt marshmallow bowl before mix in powdered sugar. This worked great. To decorated the cake, I needed total 4 batches of fondant, 2 red, 1 green and 1 red.

The fondant bow has to be made up to 1 week ahead so that the bowl can dry thoroughly. Here is the Wilton instruction on how to make fondant bow. I underestimated how fragile the bowls were and ended up with a lot of broken bowl loops. The lesson here is to be very gentle and make a lot of extras! See my make shift bowl loop hanger.

Bake Cakes

The base box was made by 3 layers of Chocolate Chiffon Cake, each layer was 12"x12"x2", filled and crumb coated with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.

I baked 3 cakes and each cake used
Egg - 10 Large
Cake flour - 120g
Cocoa powder - 60g
Oil - 60g
Milk - 100g
Sugar - 120g for egg white
Sugar - 40g for egg yolk
Lemon juice - 2 tsp
Baked at 350°F for 25 minutes.

I needed 6 batches of chocolate buttercream frosting, and each batch used
Crisco solid vegetable shortening - 1/2 cup
Butter, softened - 1/2 cup (1 stick)
Cocoa powder - 3/4 cup
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
Sifted confectioners' sugar - 4 cups  (approximately 1 lb.)
Milk - 3-4 TBSP

I would like the second tier to be 10" square, but I did not have a 10" square pan, so I baked 3 white Chiffon Cake, each was 12"x12"x2", and then trimmed them smaller. I did not trimmed them enough, the second tier was a little bigger than ideal to be fully supported by the base tier. The second tier is filled and crumb coated with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting.

The top tier was an 8" cube. In order to save time, I used the 16" square pan to bake a 16"x16"x2" cake and then divided it to four 8"x8"x2" cakes. The top layer was also filled and crumb coated with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting.

Ingredients for each layer in second tier:
Egg - 10 Large
Cake flour - 170g
Oil - 80g
Milk - 80g
Sugar - 120g for egg white
Sugar - 60g for egg yolk

Ingredients for top tier
Egg - 20 Large
Cake flour - 340g
Oil - 160g
Milk - 160g
Sugar - 240g for egg white
Sugar - 120g for egg yolk

I needed 8 batches of vanilla buttercream frosting, and each batch used
Crisco solid vegetable shortening - 1/2 cup
Butter softened - 1/2 cup

Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
Sifted confectioners' sugar - 4 cups (approximately 1 lb.)
Milk - 2 TBSP

Assemble and Decorate

1. Cakes with crumb coating should be refrigerated for 2 hours+ or overnight. Each cake should have a cake board underneath that is trim to the size of the cakes.
2. Cover each tier of cake with fondant individually. 

3. For the base and second tier, use 4 -6  Wilton bamboo dowel rods cut to length so it is just below the surface of the cake.

4. After stack the second tier on base tier, add dowel rods to go thru both tiers so that they do not shift. Then stack the top tier, and add dowel rods thru the cakes from the very top.
5. At last, add fondant bow on top, and other decorations.
6. The cake is very heavy. I am glad I used a heavy duty 16" square cake base.