Cool Homemade Gift Wrapped Birthday Cake

I made this Gift Wrapped Birthday Cake last weekend for a friend’s birthday party. I wanted to try something different and I hadn’t made bows yet. I also tried making homemade marshmallow fondant this time. It was too dry and after many attempts to make it stop tearing I threw in the towel and used store bought fondant.

The bow wasn’t allowed to dry overnight. I made the bow only hours before the party because my son decided to eat the 3 I had made the night before. I wrapped the loops in marshmallows and placed it on the cake. An hour before the party I used a fork to push the marshmallows out of the holes, they stayed perfect for the entire night.

I would however recommend letting them dry, it would have been much easier. I also used pearl dust on the bow (“ribbon”) after I put it on the cake. I would say to make sure you put that on before it goes on the cake and not apply with a small paintbrush, but with a makeup brush like I had read somewhere. The paintbrush concentrated the pearl dust to the first brush stroke-while the makeup brush swirled it around evenly.

This was a fun cake despite having to remake the bows. It was a huge hit! There was a wedding party at the restaurant where we had our dinner and the waitstaff came over to comment that my cake was better than the cake for the wedding in the next room!