For the July Daring Baker’s Challenge, Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to bake a cake. But not just any cake; she asked us to add in a special surprise for our eyes as well as our taste buds! The focus this month is not on how the cakes look from the outside, they should have surprises inside. There are tons of ways to create “surprise inside” cakes, ranging from relatively simple to super complex. Look around for inspiration and techniques; no matter how the designs turn out, the results are always a sweet treat!
There are many techniques for creating patterns, designs and images within a cake. Some can be accomplished by layering different color batters in specific orders or patterns. You’ll need to be aware of how thick your batter is for how much you want the colors to spread or meld together. Other techniques involve fully baking cakes of different colors, then cutting them and piecing them together to create different effects. Then there are techniques that combine the two, where the cakes are baked in staged and shapes are hidden within the next type of batter.
Many of these cakes involve coloring batter to make designs. While traditional food coloring is probably the easiest way to accomplish this, do not feel limited. For those of us who are trying to reduce our use of chemical additives in our food, there are plenty of natural food colorings available: try using beets or berries, saffron or turmeric, or any other natural additives to achieve different color shades.
For this challenge, I chose to go along with the World Cup theme and was ‘inspired’ by the Surprise Pinata Football Cake from BBC Good Food. The cake itself is a sturdy dense butter cake that has to be carved into to create a secret hiding place for the cute chocolate footballs that come tumbling out the moment the cake is cut. Paint the fondant scarf with your team colours and you’ll have have a stunning centerpiece for any sports themed gathering that needs a celebration cake.
SURPRISE PINATA FOOTBALL CAKE
Ingredients:
For the Chocolate Cake
200g unsalted butter
200g soft light brown sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
150g self-raising flour
50g cocoa powder, sieved
1 tablespoon milk
For the Mint Cake
200g unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
200g self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
1/2 to 1 teaspoon green food colouring paste
For the Icing and Decoration
150g unsalted butter, softened
300g icing sugar, sieved
300g chocolate balls or foil-covered chocolate footballs
4 tablespoons sieved apricot jam, warmed
500g green ready-to-roll icing
350g white ready-to-roll icing
100g black ready-to-roll icing
Method:
- Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease and base line a 20cm round cake tin with baking parchment or grease and flour.
- To make the chocolate cake, put the butter into a bowl and beat until soft. Add all the remaining ingredients and beat well.
- The resulting mixture should be light and creamy. Spoon into the tin and spread level. Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes.
- Cool chocolate cake completely in pan before turning out. When cold, slice the top off the cake to make it level and set aside.
- To make the mint cake, grease and base line your 20cm cake tin with baking parchment. Put the butter into a mixing bowl.
- Beat until soft. Add the remaining ingredients and beat well until light and creamy. Spoon batter into the tin and spread level.
- Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cool completely.
- Do not slice the top level as it needs to be rounded. To make the butter icing, put the butter into a bowl and beat until softened.
- Gradually beat in the icing sugar. Slice the chocolate and mint cakes in half horizontally so you have four even layers in total.
- Using an 8cm round cutter, stamp a circle from the centre of each layer. Place one chocolate cake layer on a 25cm cake board.
- Spread with a little butter icing. Place the bottom green layer on top. Spread with icing and top with the other chocolate layer.
- Spread with more icing and place the rounded green sponge on top. Fill the centre hole with chocolate balls, almost to the top.
- Slice one of the 8cm green sponge pieces in half horizontally. Place one piece on the cake to cover the hole containing the sweets.
- Spread with remaining butter icing. Roll out about 300g of the white fondant icing to a 20cm circle and place on top of the cake.
- Brush the sides of the cake with apricot jam. Measure circumference and depth of cake. Add 2.5cm to the depth measurement.
- Using these measurements roll out the green fondant to a long strip and attach around the cake. Snip roughly around top edge.
- Make a cardboard template of a pentagon (5 sides). Roll out the black icing and cut out six pentagons. Place them on the cake.
- With remaining white icing trimmings make a scarf and drape it over the cake edge. Add candles as desired. Serves 25 persons.
6 comments
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July 27, 2014 at 5:27 pm
Dini @ giramuk
Awesome Job!! 😀 Love it!! Love the pinata design!
July 27, 2014 at 5:55 pm
What's for dessert?
Wow, looks amazing! You did a fabulous job for this challenge!
July 27, 2014 at 6:08 pm
Sunita
Your football cake looks amazing. Lovely vibrant colours. Great step wise photos too.
July 27, 2014 at 7:10 pm
Jelena
Great job, looks perfect!
July 27, 2014 at 9:50 pm
Rebecca
I love it! Such a fun idea to have little soccer balls spilling out. I’m definitely going to remember this for the next kid cake I make.
July 31, 2014 at 2:19 am
prerrnamirchi
Big thanks to my fellow Daring Bakers!