What is a Diaper Cake?

Diaper cake is a popular baby shower gift because it’s both practical and breathtaking, it’d be the baby-shower’s centerpiece and most important, you can make a beautiful diaper cake in almost any budget.

Diaper Cake - The Perfect baby-shower's gift

Diaper cake is popular as baby shower gift because it’s practical and will do double duty as a cute baby shower centerpiece and a very practical gift for the new baby.A diaper cake is a wonderfully creative gift for an expectant mother. It is a collection of diapers rolled and stacked together to resemble a traditional tiered cake, so it looks like a multi-layered cake, the tiers of diaper cake can be 1,2,3, tiers or more, diaper cake is also garnished with baby care items such as baby socks, bottles, toys, and more.

Diaper cake is a popular Baby-Shower gift for several reasons:

• Diaper cake is original and creative. In addition, diaper cake gives your baby shower gift a personal touch
• Diaper cake is very easy to make, it’s so easy, even men can do it
• Diaper cake is a very practical gift. New parents will always need diapers and baby accessories
• You can get all Ingredients for a diaper cake at a local baby supplies store
• Diaper cake ideas are intended to be flexible so you can adapt the project to fit your budget and the needs of the recipient
• Diaper cake provides you with plenty of options, diaper cake size, and decorating ideas will make your diaper cake looks amazing and unique

Diaper Cake comes in many sizes and shapes

It can take less than an hour to make a diaper cake; the first diaper cake will probably take longer, but after making a few and learning all the tricks you’ll be amazed to see how quickly it goes. When I started to make diaper cakes I had quite some failures before I got it right. After throwing a bunch of diapers I found an online tutorial that solved all my diaper cake problems and thought me some advanced techniques that took my diaper cake for a whole new level. I’m trying to explain below how to make a diaper cake, but if it seems too complicated, I strongly recommend to view this online “course”. After viewing it you’ll know everything related to how to make a diaper cake.

How to make a diaper cake

Making a diaper cake begins with wrapping a single diaper, then adding multiple rolled diapers in a circle around that core and wrap a rubber band around it, It is easiest to start with the top level of the diaper cake, which may just be one diaper, and work down from there. So here are the basic steps for making diaper cake:

• Roll up the diapers, starting at the open top end and wrap a rubber band around it, these would be used as the inner diapers for the diaper cake
• To have a Different diaper cake layers, add multiple rolled diapers in a circle around that core to the rubber band
• Remove one or two diapers from the diaper cake base and replace with a gift, or you can crowded in beside the diapers
• Cut a circular base out of cardboard as you know how big your diaper cake will be and Place the largest layer of the diaper cake on it
• Assemble the remaining tiers of the diaper cake by inserting 1 or 2 wooden dowels through the base layer and then carefully stacking the rest diaper cake layers on top of it

The “How to make a diaper cake” instructions above are for explaining the general idea, if you’re interested in the exact “recipe” visit my post called “How to make a diaper cake“.

Diaper cake makes a great baby-shower's gift

Diaper Cake making Tips:

• Diapers are usually white, try to use color diapers to make a special diaper cake
• Add a ribbon around each layer of the diaper cake to cover the rubber bands
• Place baby’s accessories inside and diaper cake, such as baby lotion, baby wipes, pacifiers, teething rings, baby towel or baby toys
• Stuffed animal especially teddy bear is always a suggested option for the final touch for your diaper cake

I hope the post inspired you to make a diaper cake as a baby-shower’s gift. You can find detailed instructions on my “How to make a Diaper Cake” post, or take the online video tutorial.

Diaper Cake can be basic to meet any budget

His first cake was a blast, I was happy to receive his second mail with pictures of his new fondant cake: Vanilla Digger Fondant cake.

Ben's Fondant Digger Cake

Here’s what he wrote:

I made this cake at the weekend and it came out really well, it actually looks better in real life than in the pictures!!
It is a 1:20 scale model of a Komatsu PC228 made from vanilla cake with a gingerbread boom and it is 100% edible.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m an engineer and it was a real challenge to get this to stand up, taste good and be 100% edible!

Cheers,

I think it looks just brilliant:

Fondant recipe used for Digger Cake

And another one:

Another view of Ben's Fondant cake

Great work Ben, I hope to see more of your work here.

I hope your success will encourage more readers to try my fondant recipe to learn how to make fondant. You all can imagine how much a cake like that costs in the shop, I can assure you that the “make it yourself” costs are hardly 10% of that price, in addition to your satisfaction when showing off your cake.

Happy Cooking

This is a short post just to share a few of the recent pictures I received, thank you all for sending me pictures, I’ll do my best to post your pictures as soon as I get them.

Karenda sent me this picture, her first time to try my fondant recipe:

Karenda's Fondant Cake using my Fondant Recipe

I think it’s great for first attempt, Fondant Shapes, smooth covering and great coloring on the stars. You can read my coloring post to learn how to color fondant.

Erica sent me a picture of her first attempt with fondant recipe; she is very pleased with the results and she have every reason to be so:

Fondant Recipe - Ericka's Fondant cake

It’s a smooth, beautifully shaped and colored cake, if that what you got on your first attempt I can’t wait to see your future cakes!

Last but not least is Stephanie that used my fondant recipe to prepare a fondant cake for her son’s 2nd birthday. Here’s what she wrote:

Thanks so much!  I have shred your recipe already and my friend (that bakes regularly) used it last weekend also.  We both love it!

My cake may not be perfect but in my house cake comes from a box and frosting comes from a can.  After a terrible experience for my son’s first birthday, we will make our own cake from now on.  It hurt to spend $100 on an ugly cake.  My cake may not have been perfect but it was great considering my limited cooking/baking/decorating skills.

After reading her mail, reading about her limited cooking skills and the cake not being perfect, I was very surprised to see the cake she made:

Stephanie's Fondant cake

If you paid a 100$ for this cake it’d be a great deal! This is the kind of cakes you’d be happy to pay for in shops. It’s true that it can get A LITTLE better when it comes to the finishing touch, but I can assure you that my first fondant covered cake didn’t look that good!

I’m happy to get such pictures as it shows me that my fondant recipe is making people happy, you’re all welcome to try it and send me pictures of the cakes you made.

If you’re not sure which cake should be used as the base for this fondant recipe, you should try my fondant friendly cake recipe.

Happy Cooking

I suggest you read Ben B’s story below, his first time working with Fondant Recipe is so successful, I hope it’d inspire all of you to give it a try!

Here’s Ben’s mail:

Fondant Recipe - Lightening McQueen Fondant Cake

Hi,

I just really wanted to let you know how much fun I had over the weekend creating my first fondant covered cake! Not only did I use your fondant recipe (less the vegetable shortening, is this the reason for the cracking in the surface of the fondant or is that just a slight error in the consistency?) and your tips on how to colour the fondant but I also used your fondant friendly cake recipe, all of which were superb.

I consider myself to be fairly proficient at baking and cake decorating but this has now opened up a whole new world. I have previously avoided fondant because I had only ever had the commercial type and I find that very offensive to taste and in my opinion if the cake looks great but doesn’t taste great, it’s a failure! This however is delicious! (is it possible to get actual almond extract? All I seem to be able to find is artificially flavoured which I generally stay away from?).

The problem that I have when I decorate cakes is that when I finish all I can see is the errors and that is the case with this cake as well although after getting up the next morning and seeing it I am quite pleased with and proud of the result! The worst thing on this cake is the black finishing icing, its rough and in the wrong place in several areas but I have put that down to it being done at 2 in the morning having been at work all day!!!! I also still need to work out (or can you tell me?) how to attach pieces such as the spoiler without leaving such a large and visible seem. This would also be useful for fixing any tears that do occur!

You can also just see that in the lightning strikes down the side that I tried to kneed and roll out a sheet of fondant that fades from yellow to orange! It has sort of worked but I should probably have used less colour in the yellow end to start with (as per your advice, that’s midnight lazy syndrome!). Any tips on how to get that effect?

Anyway, I should stop waffling now! Thanks again for such a great experience, I have a baby shower cake to make this weekend and the only way to go now is fondant. I will send you some pictures and my intention is to leave you speechless as Brandy did with what is a truly mesmerising cake!

Yours hoping to get a picture in your blog,

Ben

And here are a few more pictures he sent:

Lightening McQueen Fondant cake

Lightening McQueen Fondant cake - side view

How to make fondant cake - By Ben

Thank you Ben for following my fondant recipe and for taking the time to send me this mail and the beautiful pictures of your cake, I agree that there’s a room for improvements but I can assure you that your cake looks WAYYYY better than any of my first cakes.

Happy Cooking

I LOVE getting readers’ mails for several reasons, but the thing I didn’t expect is that in many cases I learn new things regarding my recipes. In the Mail below Janna actually improved my Fondant Recipe, You can benefit from her experience.

Janna made this lovely fondant cake following my fondant recipe, here’s what she wrote:

Janna's Fondant Cake

Hi there.

First of all, THANK YOU for all the very good information on your website. After years of decorating many cakes over the years with (unwieldy and annoying) buttercream, I decided to make the leap into the wild world of fondant, and the results were beautiful, as you will see!

The fondant tasted delicious, as did the fondant-friendly cake (everyone exclaimed with shock and surprise at how delicious the cake itself was… tender, moist, and STURDY.)
I crumb-coated it with buttercream made with butter-flavored Crisco. I chose that over butter because I knew the cake would be sitting out in the sun for a long time. It sat out, uncovered, from 10 pm last night to 3 pm today, for three hours of that in near-direct sun, and it didn’t so much as budge. It held up PERFECTLY, not one sign of melt or sweat.

It spent the entire night (14 hours!) out in open air so the fondant could dry, and it did not impact the moistness of the cake one iota. By the way, this was my very first experience with fondant, but I made three batches in total. The first fondant batch was a crumbly mess (in retrospect, too much sugar added too early), and I had to throw it away. The second fondant batch came out beautifully–it was the main covering–and contrary to your advice I did add the gel coloring and the shortening during the initial mix. I also used my Kitchen Aid mixer to do most of the mixing, using the dough hook, and did the final kneading by hand.

Adding the color and shortening at that time worked great, as did using the mixer. I also added some salt to the mix, which I do with all my frostings and fillings. It makes the sweet “pop” more. The third fondant batch was pure white to color small pieces for the design. Instead of plastic wrap, I kept tupperware containers handy which was much more convenient. May I suggest that you place more emphasis in the fondant recipe on not putting in ALL the sugar that the recipe can contain? If you do so, then once the fondant cools it is far too stiff. Advise users of the recipe that the HEAT of the fondant is the key element to easy handling.

Fondant Recipe - decorating with fondant

You may be interested to know that, for my party of approximately 50 people, I made a huge (16″) cake, which required two entire batches of batter. I flavored it using almond AND vanilla, and twice as much salt as the recipe called for.

I used my deep dish pizza pan to bake it, which fit an entire batch of batter.
Before baking, I divided the batter into six bowls and tinted each one of the colors of the rainbow. I poured in red, then orange on that, then yellow on that, etc. I made both layers of the cake like this. When I assembled the cake, I fit them together so the final color (purple) of each layer touched, so we had a big purple center with rainbow radiating out from it. It looked magnificent!

Fondant recipe - The rainbow look of the cake

My mother-in-law took a short video of the moment when I surprised our guests by slicing into the cake… I’ll send it along too. It was a fun addition to a child’s birthday cake fantasy come true! Finally, I took your (amazing) cake recipe and The cake was a humongous success at my son’s sixth birthday party.

Thanks for making my first experience with fondant such a resounding success and for making my son’s birthday party so special!

Best, Janna

Janna – Thank you very much for your mail! I actually learnt how to improve my fondant recipe, mails such as yours makes me find the time and energy to continue my blog.

Happy Cooking

My Fondant Recipe brings a lot of mails and comments, but Brandy really got me speechless.

She followed my fondant recipe, and here’s what she wrote:

I tried your fondant recipe not only was it easy, but it tasted super! Thank you so much! Here is my cake. I think it turned out pretty well considering it is only the 2nd time I have used fondant.

 

Thanks Again

 

Brandy, 35

In Washington State

The reason for me being speechless is the quality if the cake she made in her SECOND attempt with fondant!

Fondant recipe cake

I must admit that m second attempt with the fondant recipe was much poorer than this, Brandy – I’ll be happy to post all pictures of future cake you make using my fondant recipe.

If you want to read more users stories of their experience with my fondant recipe, please visit:

• Fondant Recipe – Alison’s experience
• Fondant Recipe – Amy Johnson’s experience
• Fondant recipe – Jacalyn’s Experience
• Fondant Recipe – Stephanie’s Experience
• How to make fondant – Gerbera Daisy Cake

If you make a cake using my fondant recipe you can send it to me and I’ll be happy to post it, my mail address is theduke@thecookduke.com

Happy Cooking

I love my fondant recipe, and I’m always happy to get mails from people who followed my fondant recipe to a great success.

Danielle sent me this mail after her FIRST attempt with my fondant recipe, it’s amazing that the cake she made looks SO good after the first try.

Fondant Recipe Suns cake

Here’s what she wrote:

Hi!

I just wanted to write a quick “thank you” for the great fondant recipe, instructions, and encouragement to give it a try! I have been interested in fondant for awhile. But I always heard it was too hard to make yourself and tastes bad. My younger sister found your recipe after doing random google searches. She tried it. She succeeded. She gave me the web address.

I don’t have much spare time (I have 4 kids and the oldest just turned 3!) but I got the ingredients I’d need,  just to have them on hand. The other night, I happened to have a spare unfrosted cake just lying around….and a couple of hours I could spare (sure I had better things to do, like laundry, but the cake was much more fun. The laundry waited.)

I decided to make a Phoenix Suns cake for my husband (they are currently in the playoffs and we’re big fans).  In less than 2 hours, I was able to create this fun little cake. Sure, it’s got it’s flaws, but it definitely showed me I am able to not only make fondant, but if I was really serious about it and made some time for it, I could probably do some really cool cakes! I was SO excited that the fondant actually TASTES GOOD too. My 3 year old ONLY wants to eat the fondant!

Thanks for your instructions and pictures. I probably wouldn’t have tackled it this soon (definitely not on a random Sunday night for no reason!), or at all, especially by myself without an “experienced fondant user” with me!

Thanks again!! Feel free to use any pictures/this email in any way you’d like!

Danielle

How to make fondant

So thank you Danielle for tring my fondant recipe, I’m posting my fondant recipe here again so more people can find it.

Fondant Recipe Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp of unflavored gelatin
• 1/4 cup of cold water
• 1/2 cup of light corn syrup (If a corn syrup is not available, you can substitute it with a sugar syrup made with 1-1/4 cups sugar and 1/3 cup water, boiled together until syrupy)
• 1 Tbsp of EDIBLE glycerin (some recipes say it’s optional, believe me, it’s a must)
• 1 tsp of almond extract (I use almonds extract in m fondant recipe, but it can easil be replaced with Vanilla extract)
• 2 lbs 10X confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 tsp of white vegetable shortening

Fondant Recipe Preperations:

• Sprinkle the gelatin over cold water in a small bowl and let it rest for 2 minutes to soften
• Place the bowl in a microwave for 30 seconds on High, until the gelatin dissolves
• Add the Almond or Vanilla extract
• Add the corn syrup and the glycerin and stir until the mixture is smooth and clear (if the mixture is not turning smooth and clear, microwave it for an additional 15 to 20 seconds on high and stir again)
• Sift 1 1/2 pounds of the sugar into a large bowl
• Make a hole in the sugar and pour the liquid mixture to it and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture becomes sticky
• Sift some of the remaining 1/2 pound of sugar onto a smooth work surface and add as much of the remaining sugar as the mixture will take
• Knead the fondant, adding a little more sugar if necessary, to form a smooth, pliable mass
• Rub the vegetable shortening on your thumbs and knead it into the fondant
• Wrap the fondant in plastic wrap and place it in a tightly sealed container to prevent it from drying out. If the icing dries out and harden it can often be revived by popping it into a microwave oven for a few seconds and then kneading it back to life

One of the best things about this Fondant recipe is that the fondant recipe is not only simple and eas to follow, it also makes the best flavored fondant ou ever tried!

If you want to read more users stories of their experience with my fondant recipe, please visit:

• Fondant Recipe – Alison’s experience
• Fondant Recipe – Amy Johnson’s experience
• Fondant recipe – Jacalyn’s Experience
• Fondant Recipe – Stephanie’s Experience
• How to make fondant – Gerbera Daisy Cake

If you make a cake using my fondant recipe you can send it to me and I’ll be happy to post it, my mail address is theduke@thecookduke.com

Happy Cooking

Fondant Recipe Tiger Cake

Here’s what she wrote:

Thank you for sharing your fantastic fondant recipe on your site!
My baking skills are so-so, however after reading the fondant recipe, I felt confident that making tasty fondant was completely attainable!
Here’s my story, Alison, 29, Nashville:

Before I tried the fondant recipe on thecookduke, I had purchased the Wilton pre-made fondant to make a couple dozen toppers for cupcakes.
My first endeavor was successful, it gave me a chance to feel the texture and workability of the icing.
As cute as the toppers were, they tasted like cardboard. Even after rolling the icing out on powdered sugar…

After milling around on the internet, I came across thecookduke.com, read the testimonials, and asked a girlfriend if she would like to try it out with me…

We very precisely followed the directions… However, I think our fondant was a little too warm, because it kept “melting” or sticking to her granite countertops.
The vegetable shortening became key when working the icing, and we found that simply wrapping up the fondant and leaving it in the fridge for a few minutes (15-20) offered enough time to cool it down and solidify the texture.

We made two colors, orange and black. The black was very grey, even with a ton of icing dye. In the end, I simply painted dye directly on to specific spots to darken the grey to a black.
Orange worked great, we were able to achieve color in no time at all.

The tiger’s base is a marshmallow, with fondant shaped around it. His tummy, nose, ears, and paws are also marshmallow.
Then the marshmallow was coated with a little vanilla frosting – to give it that ‘fuzzy’ texture.
I did use tooth picks to attach his head to his torso, Paw prints were cut with circular cookie cutters.
I did include a portrait of Percy the Tiger by himself, because I kinda gave him a touch up before presenting him to my daughters school…

This project was pretty lengthly, and it did help to have a more experienced baker in the kitchen with me (it was her first time making fondant, too!).
Making the cakes ahead of time, from scratch, took about 3 hours. Two square white cakes with a simple mix of strawberry preserves heated and mixed with Grand Mariner as a filling.
Vanilla (store bought) frosting on the cakes to crumb coat.
The fondant portion ran roughly 6 hours, from scratch to finished cake.

It was completely worth the work and I cannot wait to make another cake (probably in two weeks!).

Thank you *again* for sharing this amazing fondant recipe. Your blog, advice, testimonials, and feedback gave me all of the ingredients and encouragement I needed for my first fondant cake!! =)

And look how great her cakes are:

Fondant Recipe Tiger Cake 1/5

Fondant Recipe Tiger Cake 2/5

Fondant Recipe Tiger Cake 3/5

Fondant Recipe Tiger Cake 4/5

Fondant Recipe Tiger Cake 5/5

• Fondant Recipe – Stephanie’s Experience
• Fondant recipe – Jacalyn’s Experience
• Fondant Recipe – Amy Johnson’s experience
• Fondant Recipe – Sarah’s experience

Happy Cooking

I get many great comments on my fondant recipe, and one of the questions I’m being frequently asked is what kind of cake to use as the base cake.
Well, there’re hundreds of recipes that can be used as base cake for the fondant recipe, all having the right mass and moist texture needed to support the fondant icing, but here’s the recipe for a cake you can’t fail with. I call it “Fondant icing friendly cake”
(In addition, due to its firm body it’s a perfect cake for tiered designs)

Fondant Icing Cake’s Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups of butter
• 2 1/2 cups of granulated sugar
• 3 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 cup of milk
• 5 eggs
• 1 teaspoon Almonds Extract (I’m using the almonds extract but you can easily replace it with pure vanilla extract or any other flavor you like)
• 3/4 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt

Fondant Icing Cake’s Preparations:

• Preheat oven to 350°F
• Mix the butter and sugar in a mixer bowl until light and fluffy
• Add the eggs one at a time, keep mixing until all eggs are added
• Add the almonds flavorings to the mix, followed by the flour with baking powder and salt
• Add flour mixture alternately with milk, starting with the flour
• Spray pans with vegetable pan spray and pour in the mix
• Bake until a wooden skewer comes out clean (I rather use a skewer rather than a toothpick after I burnt my hands several times using a short toothpick…)
• Cool for ten minutes in the pans, and the cake is ready for you to loosen the sides and remove the pans
• Let the cake cool completely before you start the fondant icing

This recipe makes around 8 cups of batter which will give you two 8″ round cakes. (The amount of fondant you get by following my fondant recipe is enough to cover two 8” cakes with a little fondant left for decorations)

Base cake for fondant icing

Bast cake for Fondant Icing

I hope that this recipe will encourage you to try my fondant recipe, you’re always welcome to send me pictures of cakes you made using my fondant recipe to theduke@thecookduke.com

Happy Cooking

Stephanie had a bad experience with the store-bought prepackaged fondant and she decided to give my fondant recipe a try.

Here’s what she wrote:
”
I just wanted to share with you how impressed I was with your fondant recipe!

Stephanie B
”
And here are the pictures of the cakes she made:

Fondant Recipe

Fondant Recipe

I think it’s a great success, I bet no one believed it’s her first attempt with fondant recipe!

If you want to try my fondant recipe you can find it in the post called… fondant recipe

You’re all welcome to send me pictures of cakes you made using my fondant recipe to theduke@thecookduke.com I’ll be happy to post it in my blog.

To see more pictures of people using my fondant recipe please visit “Fondant Recipe – Amy Johnson’s experience” , “How to make fondant – Gerbera Daisy Cake” and “Fondant recipe – Jacalyn’s Experience”

Happy cooking