Airplane Cake Tutorial

While I was home in Utah last week I was able to make it to my nephew’s second birthday party!  My brother works for Skywest airlines, so I think that may have to do with the fact that my nephew is obsessed with airplanes! His party was completely airplane themed and it was adorable!  He is the cutest little boy ever and I was soo excited to help my mom and sister make him an airplane cake for his birthday!  It turned out cuter than ever, and I’m excited to share this tutorial with you all!

If you have any questions about this tutorial, don’t hesitate to email me or write a comment below and I will get back to you asap!

You will need:
2, 9×13” pans of cake
6-8 Cups Buttercream frosting (recipe below)
2 empty paper towel rolls (for the engines)
Large cardboard cake board – We covered the cakeboard with green and black construction paper to make a runway for the plane.

Directions:
First, we started by making a paper replica of our airplane.  Using plain paper and a pencil, gently trace the following peieces of your airplane and make accordding to how big you want the cake.  We used two 9×13” cakes for this cake.

As you can see from the above diagram, you will need the following pieces to assemble your cake:
1: Main body of the plane
2. Upper cabin of the plane (same shape as the main body, just slightly smaller, to create 2 layers)
3. Large Wings
4. Small wings
5. Tail wing (We cut this out of cardboard, not cake!)

Next, bake your cakes!

Bake your two 9×13” cakes in well greased pans so that they will come out easily. Cool cakes in pan and then invert onto counter top.

Use your pattern pieces to cut the cakes into the shapes for your plane. Once you cut the main body of the plane and upper cabin of the plane, round the edges of the cake pieces with your knife, to make them more rounded and not square.

*** Please note that you only need to cut one side of the large and small wings! Once you have one large wing cut, you will tort that piece of cake in half, creating another large wing, which you can flip over and use on the other side of the airplane. (See image below–cut the wing to make A and B).

Once you have all of your pieces cut, cover them and place them in the freezer. They will be easier to frost frozen.

***

Make your buttercream frosting.

(Yields 6 cups)
Buttercream Frosting:

1 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup butter, softened
2 tsp vanilla extract
8 cups confectioner’s sugar
4 Tbsp milk

Cream shortening and butter with an electric mixer.  Add vanilla and mix.  Gradually add sugar and milk, scraping sides and bottom of bowl often. Continue beating until light and fluffy. Cover with a damp cloth or refrigerate in an airtight container until ready to use.

***

Remove frozen cakes from the fridge and assemble the cake on your cake board to look like your airplane.  Cut 2 large, empty, paper towel rolls in half to make 4 small engines.

Cover them with frosting and place them under the large wings of the plane for support.  Cut out your tail wing from a piece of cardboard.  Frost it and set aside until you are finished frosting the cake.

Use your frosting to make a crumb coat on the cake.  (It make be helpful to add a little extra milk to a portion of your frosting to thin the frosting for the crumb coating. This will make it easier to frost than with a thicker frosting. )

A crumb coat is a thin layer coating of frosting over the entire cake that seals in the “crumbs” of the cake, allowing you to have a clean and smooth final layer of frosting when you finish the cake, without any dark crumbs showing through.

This is especially important if you made a chocolate cake and you are frosting it with white frosting. You don’t want the chocolate cake to show through your white frosting.

Your crumb coat will look like this:

After completing your crumb coating, place the cake back in the freezer.
Remove the cake from the freezer and frost with your final layer of buttercream frosting.

Separate 2 cups of frosting out to make blue and red frosting for the decorative elements of the plane.  Make light blue frosting for your windows and red frosting for the wings and any stripes you want on the plane. Use a small, round pastry tip to frost the windows of the airplane. (Or place frosting in a ziplock bag and cut a small tip out of the corner).

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