full moon candy corn cake with caramel buttercream and chocolate glaze

Our super fancy cake design course is almost at the end.  This is our last week before the grand, overwhelming, wedding cake assignment.  So this week, in order to practice for that assignment, we had to complete a gateau assignment - where, essentially, we had to create a perfect 3 layer cake.  Our criteria was 3" high, perfect layers, thin layer of buttercream, and a beautiful exterior - so, pretty low standards, right.  

Our assignments are still under the pervading Halloween theme, so there was also that.  Being thoroughly tired of spiders and witch's brooms I decided - a candy corn cake!  Getting away from the *spooky* thing, and just making something cute.  In order to have a side detailing, I borrowed a friend's idea and put a ~wolf full moon silhouette~ on each side.

Plus, to make it even better, it's filled with caramel buttercream, a thin layer of apricot jam, and then coated in chocolate glaze. ooooo.

So, while I used a layer of chocolate cake on the bottom of mine.  I realized that a layer of yellow cake on the bottom would make more sense with the topping, and avoid having to make a separate batch of yellow cake.

W h i t e   H i g h   R a t i o   C a k e 

makes 3 cakes

3 cup cake flour

1.5 cup whole milk

9 large egg whites

3 tsp. vanilla extract

2 1/4 cup granulated sugar

6 tsp baking powder

1.5 tsp. salt

15 tbsp.  unsalted butter

yellow gel coloring

orange gel coloring

I.  Put parchment circle rings in 2  8" cake pans.  Spray the pans with cooking spray.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

II.  Lightly whisk milk, egg whites, and vanilla extract in large glass measuring cup.

III.  Mix cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in the bowl of a stand electric mixer and add butter; beating at low speed until mixture resembles moist crumbs or parmesan cheese, with no large clumps of flour.

IV.  Add 3/4 of the milk mixture to the crumbs and beat at medium speed (or high speed if using handheld mixer) for 1 1/2 minutes. Add remaining milk mixture and beat 30 seconds more. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for 20 seconds longer at low speed.

Divide the batter by 3 and add yellow gel color to one mixture, making sure not to add too much, Add. orange gel color to another mixture, and keep the last mixture white.

Fill the cake pan a little over 1/2 full. Bake for 20-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool a bit and then remove the cakes from the pan carefully and let them cool completely on a wire rack.

Once the cakes are cool cut them up into even layers, about 3/4" tall. Apply simple syrup to each layer as you add them. Whip up a batch of Italian buttercream. Add caramel sauce to about half of the italian buttercream, until it tastes just caramel - y enough - about 1/4 of a cup.  Evenly spread the caramel buttercream onto each layer.  Once it's done apply a thin layer of buttercream to the outside, so that the cake is even and level.  

The most difficult part is getting the candy corn look on the top.  I used concentric rings and placed one in the middle, maintaining that white inner color.  Then I added the gel orange color to a small portion of one buttercream, and a bit of yellow gel color to another small portion of buttercream.  Then I piped a thin ribbon in the middle of the concentric ring, being sure to leave a bit of space above and below the ring.  You then take a small offset and spin the cake wheel stand, spreading the orange color in a thin ring.  Repeat that process with yellow layer.  It's tedious work,  just be sure not to add to much buttercream into each ring!

Then put the cake in the refrigerator and let the buttercream set.  Once it's set, put a parchment cake circle over the top of the cake.  Place the cake above a wire reck over a sheet pan.  Ladle chocolate glaze that is at about 100 degrees, around the edges of the cake, until all the sides of the cake are coated.  Let cool and then add any decoration you'd like!
My wolf and moon were just rolled fondant, rolled into a thin sheet and then with moon and wolf shapes cut out into it!  I used the remainder of the buttercream to stick them on!

Happy Halloween!

~ a carved cake ~

  

I've begun my final Cake Design class!  Each week we complete a different and elaborate cake project, working during the beginning of the week on building the product, and then meticulously fussing over all the detail work on the remaining days.

This past week our assignment was to create ~a carved cake~  - something that seemed entirely impossible at the beginning of the week.  I honestly had no idea how you could have sheet pans of cake and they would somehow, miraculously, become a recognizable form - however, step by step, and with much instruction,  I finally got there.

Since this class is during the month of October, our assignments have all had this pervading *Halloween* theme to them, which, with creativity, can be fun, but then again also quite limiting when your instructor wants you to continuously put out black cats and witch's hats.  However, I've been doing my best to work within the Halloween theme and still create things that are my style.

So, to do this and create a carved cake, I decided: a raven sitting atop a gnarled, rotting tree stump.

Cake carving isn't quite as terrifying as I thought.  You bake off sheets of cake, in this case we used pound cake.  Then, using the appropriate shaped cutter, you cut out small cylinders of the cake and layer them atop each other, pasting them together with buttercream.  Once you have them stacked high enough, the most difficult part comes, using a serrated blade to actually carve the cake into a shape.  Here, I don't have too much advice except for ,good luck, and generally you can add rolled fondant to any parts where you may have cut off too much.

Once you've gotten an acceptable shape, you cover it in a thin layer of butter cream.  Roll out fondant in the color you would like and lay the fondant on top of the shape, making sure it's stuck to all parts of the cake.  

After you've done this it's pretty much detail work from here on out.   For my tree stump I added the rolled fondant sheets in small chunks and then used a dresden to create the grooves in the tree, in some places sticking on a shaped fondant branch.

For the raven I added the initial layer of fondant, and then rolled out more and actually individually cut out small feathers.  I then used gum glue to paste them to the bird, making the wings separately, and gum gluing them on at the end.

Once the final shapes were there I used edible air brush paint and airbrushed the various greens and browns into the tree stump!

The bottom is just royal icing that was textured with a paintbrush, mixed in with a bit of edible gel colors.

And, finally - a finished cake!