Cake Decorating And Sugar Art Tutorials: How To Make A Shoe Box Cake

Roll out fondant for box lid the night before you want to decorate the cake. This allows the fondant to stiffen and makes it easier to handle. Roll and cut the lid in a different color. Roll out rectangles 1/2" larger than the measurements to insure against mistakes. The 10 & 7" strips are the sides of the box lid. The thinner you can roll out the sides of lid the better. Roll out white gumpaste in a small rectangle for the barcode, diamond shape for the box label. If you want, you can also cut out lettering for the top of the shoebox.

Allow to dry. Using an edible marker and straightedge, draw a barcode and a label. You can also paint your lettering with luster dust. Take stacked and filled cake, and crumb coat with buttercream or ganache. Cover cake with fondant and trim flush with the bottom. Smooth and make your corners as sharp as possible. I use the straight edges of my fondant smoothers together at a 90 degree angle and crimp my corners. When finished, remeasure lid sides to fit over fondant box place the sides of the lid on the top side of your cake. Attach with melted chocolate. Remeasure and recut top of lid to fit perfectly. Lay on top and run bead of chocolate over seams and corners, the smooth with spatula. Once complete you can attach labels, barcodes or lettering to the box. Because Buttercream or ganache will eventually soften the fondant, Place in refrigerator until ready for delivery to prevent sagging sides. The original idea to incorporate the Birthday and Name into the barcode was the clever genious of Nati Leelavetchabutr. I was so thrilled when she gave her permission for me to use on this birthday cake!

Neodymium magnets are extremely strong! Fingers can easily get pinched when trying to separate the magnets, so we didn’t even separate ours. Be sure to keep the magnets away from cell phones, computer, and other electronics! Also make sure that no one puts them in their mouth - these would be very dangerous if swallowed. Overall, this is not a project for kids who still put things in their mouths. Iron oxide powder is not good to breathe. This is why we mixed our iron in with the liquid starch. In the post on Instructables, they recommend mixing the iron powder directly into ready-made silly putty.

Aidan and I tried doing that the day before our friends came over, except that we used our homemade silly putty recipe. Working with the iron powder was way more messy than just stirring it into a liquid, and we had a LOT of trouble getting it to mix with the silly putty. I would go the slime route instead of using silly putty, especially for younger kids. If making magnetic slime seems like too much of a hassle, you can actually purchase magnetic silly putty - Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty which comes with a magnet and does the same thing. Although judging by the reviews, I think the homemade slime responds better to the magnet! Also, here is our colored slime recipe - without the iron. It’s really fun this way too, and better for younger kids!