May 21, 2009

favor and gift idea {mini bundt cake favors}

These lovely little bundts are one of my original creations from years ago when I first started my custom wedding favor business. They really are beautiful on the table and can be customized in so many ways. I always preferred to use the mini roses to top, but any small flower will work, it just takes a little experimenting. To keep flowers fresh you can purchase the mini flower water tubes from FDE. They have no minimum order which is nice unless you want 1000 of them. Obviously you will need a mini bundt pan. Make sure to use a good nonstick pan and coat thoroughly with nonstick spray. You'll want to use either a good yellow cake or a pound cake. A boxed mix works great, but to make them extra special use a family recipe and attach a hang tag with "grandma so and so's famous pound cake" recipe printed on them. Coordinate flowers with your ceremony flowers of top with something sentimental like the flowers from your first date. Guests love that stuff.
To package, I loved to use the 4X4 clear view boxes from Paper Mart. You don't want to hide these mini works of art, they can really be a big part of your table presentation. You can buy the small doilies {you will need two sizes 3.5 & 6 inch approx.} at any craft store. Last but not least, styrofoam board. Again, you can buy it at at any craft store. It needs to be pretty thin, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 inch thick is good, cut into 4" squares. This gives the water tube something to stick into and gives the flowers a lot of support.
Ok, a couple of tips. If your cakes get too brown you can always make a simple powdered sugar glaze and spoon over the tops of the cooled cakes. {use about 2 cups of powdered sugar and add milk on teaspoon at a time until it reaches a good spooning consistency, it can't be too thin or it will just soak in so practice on one cake adjusting the water a little at a time until it just sets on top} This also helps, if the cakes stick to the pan a little, glaze can hide a lot and it really just makes them even prettier. Another thing, if you don't want the flowers to touch the top of the cake you can use a small cupcake liner as a barrier. Just cut a small X with scissors in the bottom of the liner, poke the water tube through the hole, slide the liner up and gather around flowers.
The assembly will go like this:
  1. bake your cakes, allow to cool completely
  2. glaze your cakes if desired and let set until dry to the touch
  3. fill and cap water tubes, carefully poke flowers through the tube lid
  4. set up clear view boxes and line the bottom of each box with a 6 inch doily, top doily with styrofoam board cut to fit. The sides of the doily will come up the sides of the box slightly to cover a portion of the styrofoam. Top styrofoam with another 3.5 inch doily attached with double sided tape.
  5. set cake in box and press flowers through center of cake until the water tube is secure in the styrofoam.
  6. close up boxes and decorate with ribbon, tags or whatever else your little heart desires.
I hope you love these as much as I do. Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions.


1 comment:

  1. what is the shelf life of these, meaning....if my wedding is on a sunday, when should I start baking these to keep fresh- the cake, not the flowers?

    ReplyDelete