Sugar Icicles to Decorate your Homemade Frozen Birthday Cakes

When we organise our child's birthday party we have to wear many different hats: we improvise ourselves party planner, decorator, cook, pastry chef and entertainer! Despite all my years of experience as a birthday party planner, the one hat I still struggle with is pastry chef! This year, to overcome my fear of baking, I challenged myself to bake all of my children's birthday cakes with my own two hands! 

Surfing the net I found a super easy recipe* to make really nice birthday cake decorations. I want to share it with you in order to inspire you in the elaboration of your children's homemade birthday cakes. 

The following recipe will instruct you on how to make cool sugar icicles to decorate your princess, Frozen or any other winter themed birthday cakes. 

INGREDIENTS 

You will need the following ingredients:

• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoon of corn syrup
• 2 tablespoons of water
• Thermometer
• Blue food coloring
• Parchment paper

1. In a sauce pan bring to a boil the sugar, corn syrup and water.
2. With your thermometer bring your mixture to 215* F.
3. Remove from heat and add one drop of blue food coloring. 
4. Pour your liquid on a parchment paper. You can create different shapes with different sizes. 
5. Allow your icicles to cool and then remove them from parchment paper.

• If you need to make lots of icicles I suggest you repeat the recipe several times instead of doubling the ingredients. I found it difficult to arrive to a nice finished product when the quantity is larger. 
• I suggest you really only put one single drop of blue food coloring. If you put more, the color will be too dark and will end up more green than blue. 
• To store the icicles put them in a plastic container separated by parchment paper. 
• Don't put your icicles on your cake the night before the party. The blue food coloring of the icicle will rub off a white frosting. 

  * http://www.instructables.com/id/Frozen-Icicle-Candy-Cupcakes/