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Rainbow and Clouds Meringue Cake Topper by Juliet Sear

Makes: 1 cake topperChef: Juliet SearCourse: DessertCategory: CakesMachine: MixerTotal time (min.): 50
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This is the sweetest rainbow cake topper. It’s made with meringue and is so pretty. It’s very easy to make – you simply sandwich the two halves together to get it to stand up – but looks so impressive. You can make any size you wish. Use any strong cake decorating colours, but use gel instead of liquid, or your meringue will be too runny to pipe.

Ingredients

Tools

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 120°C (225°F/Gas 1/2) and line a baking tray with parchment paper. If you’re using a template, trace any shapes onto the paper first and turn it over.
  2. Place the sugars in a bowl and stir with a spoon or whisk to combine.
  3. Whisk the egg whites and salt in a completely clean and grease-free bowl until you reach stiff-peak consistency.
  4. Add one-third of the sugar and mix thoroughly in the. Mixer or with an electric whisk at a fast speed for about 30 seconds (it will take a few minutes if doing by hand) Repeat with two further additions of the sugar until you have a stiff and glossy mixture
  5. Split the meringue, keeping about 1/3 of the mix for the clouds, and with the remaining mix, split into 5 smaller bowls and add the food colours to tint the desired shades, you can use pastel shades, or add more colour if you want the rainbow to be brighter
  6. Place each colour of the meringue into the small piping bags. Snip the ends off the bags, creating a hole of about 5 mm Place the white meringue for the clouds in the large piping bag, fitted with a large round nozzle.
  7. Using the different colours, pipe the rainbow over your template, building up from the bottom to the top.
  8. Finish by piping the puffy clouds over the ends of the rainbow
  9. Pop in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes at 120°C, then reduce the heat to 90°C for about 20-30 minutes to fully dry out, but not to colour – you need the white clouds to stay as light as possible. Turn off the oven and leave the meringues in there until it has completely cooled
  10. When ready to assemble on top of a cake, stick the two together with the flat sides against each other, use a little stiff royal icing and sandwich the 2 halves together. To stand them on the top of your cake, use a touch of royal icing to secure them in place. If you wish, you can place 2 cocktail sticks behind the rainbow while it is setting.
  11. If you are transporting the cake, pop 2 sticks in front and 2 behind.