There's no trick to it. It firms up on its own as it cools. I've had success by nuking frosting at 50% in 5 second increments until it's just barely just liquified. I test by stirring. It only needs to be warm enough to be dip-able. In my mind, (your mileage may vary) warming the frosting in a shallow, flat-bottomed container, barely bigger than your cubes, would be less messy than pouring... you could dip one side at a time, and if you worked quickly, your finger marks in the frozen cake would fall out as it cooled. I learned this trick from an awesome book I bought my niece and nephew for Christmas. They describe the technique on pages 18 & 19, which you can see by clicking on the "search inside this book" link, entering the work "microwave" in the search pane, selecting the second search result, and turning to page 19 with the right hand arrow. (For the record, the book is way fun!) I tried this dipping technique with cupcake frosting and the results were so flawless that the ladies I served them to assumed I'd done something very difficult and fancy. The punchline was that it took less time to dip (from scratch) cupcakes into warmed white Duncan Heinz frosting (with a bit of yellow food coloring and lemon extract added) than it would have taken to frost by the traditional method. The frosting firmed up a bit and they looked beautiful. This book also demonstrates a stupid-simple technique of drawing a design on a paper template, slipping the template on wax paper, melting some colored wafers, spooning them into a ziploc, cutting a tiny hole in the corner, and drawing on the wax paper. To see an example, enter the word "monarch" in the search pane and see pages 77-79. Or just buy the book. It's a fun jumping-off point for the imagination.

The cupcakes would be a cute idea, you could decorate each one with a letter so together it says "Happy Birthday To Our Queen" or the Queen - you could also put the cupcakes on a board in the shape of a tiara or castle (?) I did find a present cake, quite elegant, you could change the colors to reflect her brown, pink and silver favorites. The link is here for you. Hope you post the finished product! Suzan J Here is a link that might be useful: present cake...

Watch your dimensions and also think through your process for preparing a meal. In your drawing above, you need landing space to the right of the sink and your refrigerator doesn't look deep enough (my counter depth fridge has a counter depth fridge box, but the door and handles stick out another four inches for a total of 30".) Also, standard depth counters are 26", not 24.

Italian meringue buttercream is a bit more work than the decorator icing above but the texture is silky smooth and because it is made with only butter it is perfect to eat. The process is to combine sugar and water over medium heat until every sugar crystal is dissolved. Then increase heat to high and cook to a temp of 230. If you don't have a thermometer to check the temp you can do it the old fashioned way by dropping a bit from a spoon into ice water and checking to see if it gloms together in a soft ball that you can grasp with your fingertips. Meanwhile beat egg whites in a stand mixer until soft peaks and still shiny. When the sugar syrup is at the proper temp, pour it over the meringue in a slow stream with the mixer running at medium speed. Increase speed to high and beat until cooled. Then beat in unsalted softened butter. Flavor as desired. The icing will keep for at least 1 week in the fridge. It is a classic recipe so you can easily Google the proportions. It is stiff enough to pipe roses.