How to Make a Popcorn Bag Cake
Design by Invitation
One of my friends always has me design her children's cakes from a custom birthday party invitation she sends out. She introduced another one of her friends to me and her friend had the same idea for her daughter's 11th birthday. Samara's invitation had a big bag of popcorn on it, so of course we'd need a "bag of popcorn" cake!
I LOVE to design cakes this way. Sometimes they are almost identical to the invite and other times the invitation simply serves as a launching point for inspiration. For Samara's birthday, the cake was pretty similar to the invitation.
The Cake
The cake was for a sleepover party for 11 year old girls. Knowing this, and the fact that the design of the invite lent itself to a rectangular shape, we decided to go with a 1/4 sheet cake. Serving would be easy and they'd be smaller pieces than if we went with a layer cake. Once the size was selected it was time to assemble the cake!
Here is the blank canvas for the cake, and the stripes for the popcorn bag!
Caramel Corn
I thought it'd be **GREAT** fun to make real popcorn for Samara's cake. To make sure it would stick, I decided to work with caramel corn instead of regular popcorn. After adding the stripes to the blank cake canvas, I made microwave caramel corn. I needed such a small amount that it felt silly to make a whole batch! I gently piled it up on the cake after allowing it to cool. I tried to use as much as I could. I could already imagine the girls trying to divvy up the popcorn at the party!
It’s a Party!
One of the things that I really liked about the invitation were the letters spelling out **PARTY** on top of the invitation. I decided to custom cut party letters from thick gum paste for the cake. I thought they would be good without the red outline, but once I got them on the cake they seemed to just cry out for red outlining. I considered adding the candle flames, but decided that the cake should not be 100% a replica of the invitation, so I left them out.
The cake has big gum paste letters to let us know it is a party!
Add the outline and the ticket and the cake is complete!