The Drip cakes recently became a massive hit, and I adore them too! They look so effective and you can change them in so many ways that a drip cake is perfect for any came lover. I always use a chocolate ganache for my drips but you could also use melted chocolate, or melted candy melts to get lots of wacky colours 🙂

If you haven’t already, check out my post about the sharp edged buttercream cake …. (https://thebakingzebra.blog/2017/07/16/do-you-want-sharp-edges-on-your-buttercream-cakes/). You’ll need to have your cake at this stage before you can start the dripping. If you’d prefer to cover your cake in ganache that’s fine too, just use it in the same way as the buttercream and you’ll be left with a beautiful finish.

1. Cover your board with fondant (I do mine a few days in advance so it has time to dry). To do this, roll out a sheet of fondant to around 3-5mm thick, dampen your board with some wet kitchen towel, drape the fondant over the top and smooth well. Next use a sharp knife to trim the edges and again smooth the top and sides.
2. You may find it easier to add the ribbon when the cake isn’t complete as it weighs it down, to add the ribbon simply apply a strip of double sided tape the whole way around the drum, stick your ribbon to it and secure the end with more tape or a pin.
3. If you’re adding a message I tend to do before the cake is on the board, use a piece of greaseproof paper or similar to mimic the shape of your cake so you can line up the message accurately, stick the letters down with a little water.
4. This cake was a chocolate sponge and so I filled and crumbcoated with ganache before adding a layer of the lime colour buttercream.
5. Make your ganache, I used a 1:1 ration of dark chocolate and cream here to get the right consistency. Either over a steam bath or in the microwave carefully melt together the chocolate and cream until you have a smooth and glossy ganache. This was a 6″ cake and I used 100g dark chocolate and 100ml double cream which meant I had leftovers too …. never a bad thing. Pour your ganache into a piping bag and leave to cool slightly.
6. While the ganache is cooling, take your refrigerated cake (as cold as possible) and place it onto your iced board. I used to use a cake lifter to put my cakes on a board but it always went wrong! I’d knock the icing, make a dent, put it in the wrong place, the list goes on …. but not anymore! Once the cake is perfectly iced, flip it upside down onto a sheet of greaseproof paper, add a dollop of icing to the bottom and carefully turn your iced board upside down onto the cake. If you added text it will make it even easier to position symmetrically!
7. Once the board is in the right position gently press it down to secure. Gently flip the cake back the right way and you’re all set.
8. By now your ganache should have cooled enough to not melt the buttercream but still be runny enough to drip and fill neatly. Test on an upturned glass, does the ganache drip? And if you pipe a line over itself does it slowly blend back into itself? If the answer is yes the you’re ready!
9. Carefully pipe drips and a border around the top of your cake, hold the bag in one place for longer if you’d like a lower drip and keep changing the size as you go around the cake.
10. Now fill in the top (I left the middle as I had a plaque to stick on but fill yours!), you don’t want tonnes on the top, just enough to cover. Give the cake a jiggle to encourage the ganache to settle and flatten out, if need be use a palette knife to smooth any bumps.
11. Put in the fridge to chill for 30 mins and you’re then ready to pile up the sweets!  Leave any left over ganache in the bag to cool completely and it can then be used to stick sweets to the side or base of your cake.
12. Decorate however you fancy! This gives you a blank canvas to go wild on 😀
13. Once complete store in a cake box in a cool room (not fridge) until serving.

 

This really is a most effective way for of decorating cakes, there’s little stress involved and they’re relatively speedy too! If you want coloured drips but don’t like using candy melts make a white chocolate ganache and colour it with a gel colour. For the gold drips below I used ganache and painted with a gold edible paint.

Have fun! XX