It’s time for a full post on a project I recently completed! My son just turned 11, and for his birthday he requested a Red Velvet Mountain Cake. We moved West to the mountains last year, and he had just finished his first season on the ski team in our new town. I thought it was a great idea for a cake, but really needed some time to figure out the logistics.
After sketching my design, it was time to go into the kitchen and start stacking my cake pans to see how many I would need to reach the shape I had in mind……this was going to be 7 layers of cake! I started with two 12 inch layers, then one 9 inch layer, followed by two 8 inch layers, then a 6 inch square layer and a 6 inch circular layer.
I elected to make this a frosted cake, rather than a fondant cake. I figured the frosting would more closely represent snow than I could make with the fondant. The frosting could be shaped into snow mounds, ski runs, and would be more forgiving than fondant on a cake this size. But, I would still need fondant for my trees, buildings, chairlift, and race course. So, a couple days prior to baking the cakes, I got to work making a forest-sized number of trees. Here is a post on how to make these trees!
These trees are easy to make and are a good beginner project. I would make about 40 or so every time I sat down, and was able to get that part of the project done in a couple days. I also made the race gates, started the chairlift and buildings, and made my son’s name out of fondant in those first couple days. This way I knew everything would be dry, or set, by the time I needed it.
As there were seven layers of cake to be made, I knew this would be a day-long project. I like thick layers of cake, so this cake took many duplications of the recipe…..that is a lot of red food color! One great tip that I have learned along the way for making flat cake layers is to add a few flower nails to the bottom of the cake pan. These allow for heat conduction in the center of the cake, makes for more even baking, and less wasted cake when leveling!
The next day it was time to start leveling, frosting, and layering this cake! Here’s my post on Cake Stacking 101. Once all seven layers were stacked, it was time to start shaping the cake into a mountain. To be honest, most of the shaping was done with the frosting, but the shaping helped to remove some of the outer layer of the cake which can be a little more dry.
As I mentioned, I decided to cover this cake in frosting rather than fondant. It’s almost embarrassing how much frosting is on this cake, but it needed to look just right. I made frosting batch after frosting batch after frosting batch. In the end I thought about how our mountain had a base of 100 inches of snow at the summit, and then I didn’t feel as bad about all the frosting! It was honestly made pretty closely to scale.
Once I achieved a mountainous look to the cake it was time to start planning where the ski runs would go. Having a race course on part of the cake was a fun addition. The poles are pieces of coated flower wire, with a fondant flag in the center. The chairlift has fondant chairs, and then I connected multiple pieces of the coated flower wire together and was able to bend the wire into the shape I wanted for the overall lift design. 
Then those trees! Hundreds of trees are on this cake. As many trees as you see on the front side, are also on the back side of the cake. I made three different colors of green fondant for the trees so they would more accurately represent the forest at the mountain. There are many ski runs that all come down to the base of the chair lift. My son’s name was cut out of two different green colors to give it dimension and match the color of the trees.
The final addition to the cake once everything was in place was to add some fresh powder! I used my powdered sugar sifter to sprinkle powdered sugar over the top of the cake to create the winter wonderland look of fresh powder.
What a fun project this was! After celebrating with family, we cut up the remainder of the cake, and double wrapped it in plastic wrap, aluminum foil, and ziplock bags and put it in the freezer. Now we can pull out a piece of cake and think about his birthday whenever we want!
Mountains are big, so this cake needed to be big! I knew it would require many many layers of cake. Then I also had to think about whether I wanted to cover it in fondant or leave it as a frosted cake. So many decisions. I stood for a while staring at the mountain, as I can see it out the back window at my house. I can name the ski runs from here that we spent all winter skiing down. With a pen and paper I started drawing what I thought the cake might look like. It was a tough one; I wanted to get enough height, but knew I’d be limited by the size of the cake bases that were available. With the expected weight of the cake, I wanted to stick with one of my sturdier round cake bases, rather than one of the more flimsy rectangular bases.
After sketching my design, it was time to go into the kitchen and start stacking my cake pans to see how many I would need to reach the shape I had in mind……this was going to be 7 layers of cake! I started with two 12 inch layers, then one 9 inch layer, followed by two 8 inch layers, then a 6 inch square layer and a 6 inch circular layer.
I elected to make this a frosted cake, rather than a fondant cake. I figured the frosting would more closely represent snow than I could make with the fondant. The frosting could be shaped into snow mounds, ski runs, and would be more forgiving than fondant on a cake this size. But, I would still need fondant for my trees, buildings, chairlift, and race course. So, a couple days prior to baking the cakes, I got to work making a forest-sized number of trees. Here is a post on how to make these trees!
These trees are easy to make and are a good beginner project. I would make about 40 or so every time I sat down, and was able to get that part of the project done in a couple days. I also made the race gates, started the chairlift and buildings, and made my son’s name out of fondant in those first couple days. This way I knew everything would be dry, or set, by the time I needed it.
As there were seven layers of cake to be made, I knew this would be a day-long project. I like thick layers of cake, so this cake took many duplications of the recipe…..that is a lot of red food color! One great tip that I have learned along the way for making flat cake layers is to add a few flower nails to the bottom of the cake pan. These allow for heat conduction in the center of the cake, makes for more even baking, and less wasted cake when leveling!
The next day it was time to start leveling, frosting, and layering this cake! Here’s my post on Cake Stacking 101. Once all seven layers were stacked, it was time to start shaping the cake into a mountain. To be honest, most of the shaping was done with the frosting, but the shaping helped to remove some of the outer layer of the cake which can be a little more dry.
As I mentioned, I decided to cover this cake in frosting rather than fondant. It’s almost embarrassing how much frosting is on this cake, but it needed to look just right. I made frosting batch after frosting batch after frosting batch. In the end I thought about how our mountain had a base of 100 inches of snow at the summit, and then I didn’t feel as bad about all the frosting! It was honestly made pretty closely to scale.
Once I achieved a mountainous look to the cake it was time to start planning where the ski runs would go. Having a race course on part of the cake was a fun addition. The poles are pieces of coated flower wire, with a fondant flag in the center. The chairlift has fondant chairs, and then I connected multiple pieces of the coated flower wire together and was able to bend the wire into the shape I wanted for the overall lift design.
Then those trees! Hundreds of trees are on this cake. As many trees as you see on the front side, are also on the back side of the cake. I made three different colors of green fondant for the trees so they would more accurately represent the forest at the mountain. There are many ski runs that all come down to the base of the chair lift. My son’s name was cut out of two different green colors to give it dimension and match the color of the trees.
The final addition to the cake once everything was in place was to add some fresh powder! I used my powdered sugar sifter to sprinkle powdered sugar over the top of the cake to create the winter wonderland look of fresh powder.
What a fun project this was! After celebrating with family, we cut up the remainder of the cake, and double wrapped it in plastic wrap, aluminum foil, and ziplock bags and put it in the freezer. Now we can pull out a piece of cake and think about his birthday whenever we want!
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