The 6 year old is now 7. Happy Birthday! The only request as far as a cake went was that it should look like Toothless, the dragon. How in the world was I going to do that?
Enter the soccer ball cake pan. That thing has been: a ladybug, a jack o'lantern, a golden snitch, and now a dragon. I have never actually made a soccer ball cake. But I also used a heart shaped springform pan and took a little of the cake batter to fill that. That's the head. I cut the point off the chin and used bamboo skewers to join it to the body. Then I struggled with the wings and tail. I had come up with the idea that fruit leather could be used to make the wings. It used to be the case that you could find fruit leather in the store that could be unrolled and cut but, now that I needed it, I couldn't find any. I decided to make some.
I bought 2 pints of blackberries and pureed them, added water (almost 2 cups), sugar (1 cup) and lemon juice (1 Tbsp., I think), and some black food coloring and then cooked it on the stove for a little while to thicken. Then I spread it on saran on a cookie sheet (the kind with edges) and kept it in the oven, set to warm, for about half a day. Maybe longer. When it was ready I chilled it so I could work with it.
The frosting is a chocolate buttercream with black food coloring. Not sure what happened here; in the past I'd been able to get a deeper black by starting with chocolate frosting. Maybe I needed it to be more chocolatey? Not sure. Anyhow, here's Toothless:
Enter the soccer ball cake pan. That thing has been: a ladybug, a jack o'lantern, a golden snitch, and now a dragon. I have never actually made a soccer ball cake. But I also used a heart shaped springform pan and took a little of the cake batter to fill that. That's the head. I cut the point off the chin and used bamboo skewers to join it to the body. Then I struggled with the wings and tail. I had come up with the idea that fruit leather could be used to make the wings. It used to be the case that you could find fruit leather in the store that could be unrolled and cut but, now that I needed it, I couldn't find any. I decided to make some.
I bought 2 pints of blackberries and pureed them, added water (almost 2 cups), sugar (1 cup) and lemon juice (1 Tbsp., I think), and some black food coloring and then cooked it on the stove for a little while to thicken. Then I spread it on saran on a cookie sheet (the kind with edges) and kept it in the oven, set to warm, for about half a day. Maybe longer. When it was ready I chilled it so I could work with it.
The frosting is a chocolate buttercream with black food coloring. Not sure what happened here; in the past I'd been able to get a deeper black by starting with chocolate frosting. Maybe I needed it to be more chocolatey? Not sure. Anyhow, here's Toothless:
LOVE IT! We are also big into personalized cakes for our children. It's always a challenge to get the right idea and then figure out how to make it work in cake and frosting. Sometimes I can get it right.. sometimes not so much. But it always tastes good!
ReplyDeleteJudy
Impressive. Especially the fruit leather.
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