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A school bag cake for the first day of school? Not just for pros: Here's how to bake the ultimate, easy-to-make themed cake for the first day of school!
It won't be long now before your kindergarten child turns into a schoolchild? How exciting! A completely new phase of life that brings with it so many exciting changes! The little ones are so proud to finally be allowed to go to school, but at the same time, they don't yet know exactly what to expect in elementary school, and saying goodbye to their familiar daycare is probably quite daunting...
All these are enough reasons to properly celebrate the little ones' first day of school! The farewell from kindergarten was also a big celebration. For my kid's farewell from kindergarten, my kid came up with a very special cake: a brightly colored school bag cake. An innocent request that briefly made me nervous after I googled "school bag cake"... Pages of cake dreams made of fondant and buttercream opened up, and I couldn't tell them apart from real school bags...
So I thought, I can make it easy, too, and this delicious, vanilla school bag cake was born: super simple and delicious! And most importantly: uncomplicated! If I can make it, you can too! And the best part: my little one was so proud of her "edible" school bag, which she got to eat along with her kindergarten friends!
Unique gifts for starting school
Starting school is a very special day in a child’s life!
For this special occasion, we have created unique DIY gifts that come from the heart: encouraging banderoles for Ritter Sport Minis, “You are a schoolchild” Duplo boxes, welcome chocolates at school and much more.
If you want to find more delicious & easy cake ideas for the first day of school, check out our delicious cake buffet for the starting school here.
Here is our recipe for a simple school bag cake:
Our school bag cake
A real baking highlight from our kitchen! We baked the school bag cake using a vanilla sponge mixture, but you can also use your favorite sponge cake recipe. Just make sure you adjust the quantities to fit a rectangular springform pan. If you and your kids prefer marble cake, you can find the recipe for it in our 3 exclamation mark blog post and our recipe for a moist chocolate cake in a rectangular springform pan can be found in our Halloween cake blog post.
Ingredients for our school bag cake
Sponge dough (for 1 rectangular springform pan)*
- 250 g sugar
- 1 pinch of salt
- 6 eggs
- 300 g soft margarine
- 450 g flour
- 1 1/2 packet of baking powder (22 g)
- 220 ml milk
- 2 tbsp vanilla extract* (or 2 vanilla pods)
Decoration
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Baking accessories
Kitchen scales, mixing bowl, hand mixer, measuring cup, rectangular springform pan* & 1 sheet of baking paper, dough scraper, knife, cooling rack, saucepan & melting bowl, brush or palette
Preparation
We bake our fluffy vanilla cake:
- First, heat the oven to 175°C top/bottom heat and stretch the baking paper into the springform pan.
- Now add the soft margarine, sugar, vanilla extract and a pinch of salt to the mixing bowl and beat the ingredients with the hand mixer until fluffy.
- Then beat the eggs one by one into the dough, pour in the milk and mix the ingredients well.
- In the next step, mix the baking powder with the flour and slowly stir the flour-baking powder mixture into the dough.
- The dough is now poured into the springform pan.
- The sponge cake is then baked in the oven for 40 minutes. Since ovens heat and bake at different levels, do the stick test to make sure your cake is baked through. (You don’t know what a “stick test” is yet, no problem, in this article I’ll tell you a few baking tricks and baking terms.)
- After the vanilla cake is baked, it is removed from the springform pan and cooled on a cooling rack.
The vanilla cake becomes a school bag cake:
Before you start decorating, you should be aware that cake melts and similar cake glazes dry very quickly. Therefore, you should have all the ingredients you need to decorate your school bag cake ready to hand. Let's get started:
- First, cut the rectangular vanilla cake (25 cm x 38 cm) into 4 pieces (see instructions in the pictures). To do this, cut off a piece from the top edge measuring approximately 25 cm x 10 cm. From this piece, cut the 3 small pieces (front pocket, buckles). The approximate dimensions for the 4 pieces are as follows: 1 x school bag body (25 cm x 28 cm), 1 x front pocket (18 cm x 10 cm), 2 x buckles (6 cm x 5 cm).
- In the next step, the buckles and the front pocket are coated with the yellow, melted cake melts (melt according to the product description either in a water bath or in the microwave) and outlined with chocolate beans.
- Next, a yellow half circle is painted along the upper edge of the body. This will be the flap of the School bag. This, too, will be outlined with chocolate beans and inscribed with the words "Off to School" in edible decorative letters.
- Now the rest of the body is covered with the light blue, melted cake melts.
- Finally, the decorated front pocket and the decorated buckles are placed on the body.
And the school bag cake is ready for the starting school cake buffet!
Preparation in pictures
The school bag cake is decorated:
Now tell me again that you have to be a pro to make a themed cake 😉 Of course, you can also bake this school bag cake together with your little ones!
A little tip for your kid’s first day at school: We made the little school cones made of ice cream cones and they were also really popular. Especially the little surprise that was inside the school cone!
My kids and I wish you and your minis lots of fun baking and a wonderful beginning of school!
Yours, Lia
First day of school – gift ideas for the first day of school or the school cone
Are you still looking for small gift ideas for the school cone? Or a small gift for the 1st grader? I have summarized our gift ideas for starting school here. There is sure to be something for your little one!
Have you baked the recipe?
How exciting! We're really happy about that! We are pleased that we were able to delight you with our recipe. Feel free to share your treat with us on Instagram using the hashtag #backenmitminis.
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