A Cake in a Shape of a Burger?!

As mentioned in a blog post, (that was a while ago now), I have taken up a challenge in making my boyfriends 21st birthday cake. I know it's a month late but at least I managed to get it posted!

And yes it was a challenge and theres tons of buttercream involved!

I decided on a burger cake, not only to test my decorating skills but to celebrate my boyfriends birthday and celebrate our silly coupley in joke.
My boyfriend is a huge fan of comedy and adores the comedy style of Lee Evans. We both love his style of comedy and we have a little in joke of just saying:
"Burger"
So I made cake in the shape of a burger! Pretty simple really!
The original recipe and the tutorial was originally published by My Cake Decorating Magazine 

Recipe: Basic Chocolate Cake

•        4 Eggs
•        225g  diced unsalted butter, room temperature
•        225g  cup of caster sugar
•        175 self raising flour
•        1 teaspoon baking powder
•        50g  cocoa powder

Equipment:

•        Sieve
•        Bowlx2
•        Mixer
•        Measuring jug
•        Scraper
•        Cake tins 20cm/8inch x3
•        Angled palette knife
•        jug

1.    Preheat oven to 180c/350c/Gas Mark 4. Line and grease cake tins.

2.    Sieve together the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder in a bowl.

3.    Beat the butter, and sugar until light and fluffy using a mixer. Stop occasionally to scrape down the bowl.

4.    Crack all the eggs into a jug.

5.    Add the eggs a little at a time with the mixer on a higher speed. (if the mixture splits add a little bit of flour)

6.    Fold in half flour using a wooden spoon.

7.    Fold in the rest of the flour and fold in well.

8.    Divide the mixture between the two tins and smooth it down with an angled palette knife.

9.    Bake for 15 to 25 minutes.

Recipe: Decorating Materials 

•        200g buttercream
•        300g/1 pack of pale yellow sugar paste
•        150g/1 pack of brown sugar paste
•        20g/ 1 pack yellow sugar paste
•        25g /1 pack green sugar paste
•        15g/1 pack of red sugar paste
•        Chocolate brown blossom tint
•        Deep yellow blossom tint

Equipment:

•        Cake carving knife
•        Non stick cake board
•        No stick rolling pin
•        Cake smoother
•        Fluting and veining tool or a toothpick
•        Kitchen paper towels
•        Flat paintbrush
•        5/6cm round cutter
•        Small knife

     1.Once your cakes have cooled. Place them in the freezer to make them easier to carve. I left it overnight but you can leave it for about 2 hours.

    2. Using a cake carving night, trim around the top and bottom edge of the cakes to create a smooth rounded shape. Once edge of two of the cakes should be more rounded than the other, so that they look like a bun.

    3. Carve the third cake so that it’s rounded on both edges. Once trimmed, cover each cake with buttercream to crumb-coat and put in the fridge for an hour.

   4. Roll out the pale sugarpaste to about 2-3mm thick and place it over one of the bun cakes. Use hands to smooth it over the top of the cake down and around the curved sides and tuck it under the bun. Tuck it in as neatly as you can. Smooth over the cake with the cake smoother, using a circular polishing motion. Do the same with the other cakes. Cover the second cake with pale yellow sugar paste and the third more rounded cake with brown sugar paste.

   5. Using a fluting and veining tool or a toothpick, make tiny little holes in the burger cake, press it into the side of burger to make pitted details in varying shapes and sizes. Make it look as random as possible.

   6. Tip a little chocolate brown blossom tint onto a kitchen paper towel and dip in a clean flat paintbrush. Sweep it over the sides of the burger to make it look more ‘greasy’.

   7. Tip a little bit of the deep yellow blossom tint onto another kitchen paper towel, tint the sides and top of the ‘top bun’ cake. Brush around the edge of the ‘bottom bun’ cake as well.

   8. Spoon a little buttercream onto the top of the ‘bottom bun’ (This is the unfinished side and should be facing upwards) and spread it out. Place the brown burger on top. The buttercream should glue it in place.

   9. Roll out the yellow sugar paste as thin as you can, about 1mm thick. Cut out a square using a cake smoother to get a straight edge. Roll out the paste again and roll out 3 more squares.

  10. Smear more buttercream on top of the burger and place the yellow squares on top of the burger, so that corner of it drapes over the edge to look like cheese slice.

  11. Roll out green flower paste as thinly as you can (it should ideally be a bit thinner than the cheese and larger diameter). Cut around the edge to make a wavy line and neaten it up. Dab a little more buttercream onto the cheese slices and place the green paste on top of the cheese. Pinch the top to create folds and make it look like green lettuce. Make 2 more lettuce leaves using the same technique.

  12. Roll out the red sugarpaste to 2mm thick and use a round cutter to cut 4/5 circles. Attach each one to the top of the lettuce with a smear of buttercream. Position them near the outer edge of the cake so that they can be seen. 

   13. Now put a decent layer of buttercream onto the tomatoes and lettuce, then carefully stick the top layer of your burger bun onto the cake.

i 

   I've got to admit that I'm very proud of this cake! I took a ridiculous amount of photos and even decorated the cake long into the night. 

   That's why I'm in a dressing gown and looking very tired. Not the best picture ever. 

   I used white chocolate letters to spell out 'Happy 21st Birthday Rob', which I stuck on with some more, you guessed it, buttercream!

   

   This cake is not for one person. Don't be greedy with it Grandad. It must be a generational thing.  

    

    My boyfriend and his house mates loved it so much the cake didn't late long. It was eaten so quickly I didn't get the chance to take a single picture!!

   Bake On!

   Penny x

The Hidden Heart Cake

Right first real post to do with baking! Woo!
I do my fair share of reading baking and cooking blogs, but I saw this oh so cool Hidden Heart tutorial from i am baker.

It was a case of what occasion I need to make such a cool cake? Then I get invited to a friends birthday dinner. Perfect!
I made her a birthday cake that I know that she would love!
It was the first ever time that I made this cake and I've NEVER made a layer cake like this. So, first time effort plus never made a cake like this, I'd like to think deserve a little pat on the back.
Here is the batter photo's. I used a victoria sandwich sponge recipe which turned out really light and delicious. (This is at the bottom of the post.)

I made 4 cakes (the recipe below makes 2 cakes if you split them into 2 tins. I used 7 inch tins.)

After all the cakes were cooled I popped them in the freezer to firm up and make it easier to level. Below, are the pictures of leveled cakes. Of course I had a cake lever to give me a hand.

Next you need I put a thick layer of buttercream between two of the sponges. This is one of the most important lessons ever: double check you've got the right ingredients. I say this because I ran out of ingredients to make my own buttercream, so I had to use buttercream from a can, homemade tastes nicer. So what's that rule again? double check you've got all the right ingredients.

Once the cakes were firmly 'glued' together with the buttercream, by being in the freezer for a couple of hours, I tied erm... dental floss to two toothpicks to create a guideline around both cakes. (I couldn't find string, dental floss did the trick.)

Next was the super hardest bit, the carving out. One cake needed to have a 'V' in the middle and the other needed to have a volcano and canal (see below. However, I can see that now it was too domed shaped rather then volcano shaped.) I find the best thing to do is carve with a knife and then  spoon out any extra bits.

Next I crumbed up the red velvet cake, and then filled it into the carved gaps with the white cake.

Next both cakes went into the freezer overnight with a thin layer of buttercream also called a crumb coat. Then the fun part, the decorating. Essentially I covered the whole cake in vanilla buttercream and used some basic piping skills to do the edges. Then dyed the sugarpaste red and stamped out letters and butterflies. Then I added some the leftover red velvet crumbs around edges.

You know, it looks like a pretty birthday cake.

The point is, that the birthday girl loved the cake.

Personally, I thought it looked more like a smile then a heart. But not bad for a first try. But the top layer, the 'volcano and canal' carved cake needs to reassemble a volcano rather then a dome shape. Remember to try this for yourself check out i am baker's tutorial.

Recipe time:

Victoria sandwich from "Saved by Cake" by Marian Keyes 

•        200g unsalted butter
•        200g caster sugar
•        4 eggs
•        1 tea spoon vanilla extract
•        200g self raising flour

1.    Butter two 7cm tins and line the bases with baking paper. Pre-heat the oven to 190c/375f/Gas Mark 5.
2.    Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one by one, beating between each addition. The mix may curdle a little but add a tablespoon of flour if this happens.
3.    Stir in the vanilla extract and sieve in the flour and fold through.
4.    Divide the mix between tins and bake for about 20 minutes.

 Red velvet cake from "Cakes Galore" by Valerie Barrett

•        75g unsalted butter, soften
•        300g caster sugar
•        2 eggs, beaten
•        1 teaspoon vanilla extract
•        225g plain flour
•        3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
•        1 ½ teaspoon red food colour paste
•        125ml buttermilk
•       1 tablespoon white vinegar
•        a pinch of salt 
• 
  

1.     Preheat the oven to 180c/350c/ gas mark 4. Grease and flour two 23cm round sandwich cake tins.
2.     For the cake, cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl, then beat in the eggs and vanilla extract. 
3.     Sift the flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a separate bowl. Stir in the food colour paste into buttermilk.
4.     Alternately add the flour and buttermilk mixtures to the creamed mixture. Stir in the vinegar, mixing well. 
5.     Pour the mixture into the prepared tins, dividing it evenly. Bake in the oven for 30-35 mins or until firm to touch. 
6.     Cool in the tins for 10 mins, then turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

I hope you give this try!

Bake on!

Penny