April 2013 – cakes

Tardis Where the Wild Things Are — A Tardis cake for Lochie on his 13th birthday. He is a big Dr Who fan!

The Tardis cake was on a black marble turntable and we hid it in the media room (no windows). Lochie was brought into the darkened room and someone swirled the cake around at speed while another person moved their hand rapidly up and down in front of a torch, creating a strobe effect while a third person (Alasdair) played the Dr Who TV theme tune on the laptop. All of this went down really well!

This cake was another of my dark chocolate mud cakes with dark chocolate ganache filling as all children seem to love it and adults too. The cake is quite straightforward and the instructions are easy to follow. It did, however, take longer to make than I anticipated so leave some extra time for the finishing touches.

Materials

8″ square cake tin

2 x 4.5″ set up boards

2 x 4″ set up boards. These boards will be used to separate the top and bottom parts of the cake.

1.5 kg blue / grey sugar paste

Small amounts of black and white sugar paste for windows, signs etc.

Dark blue petal dust

I used an 8″ square pan for the cake but I used the recipe for a 9″ square cake so that my cake would be taller than normal.

9” square dark chocolate mud cake recipe

400g unsalted butter

325g dark chocolate

1.5 tablespoon instant coffee

2.2 cups warm water

2.5 cups self raising flour

1.5 cup caster sugar

0.4 cup cocoa

3.25 eggs

1.5 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions:

1. Grease and line base and sides of cake pan with one thickness of baking paper, bringing paper 5cm above side of pan.

2. Combine chopped butter, chopped chocolate, coffee, and water in a saucepan.

Stir over low heat until chocolate is melted. Cool 15 minutes. Transfer mixture to bowl of mixer.

3. Add caster sugar to mixture and beat well until dissolved. Add sifted flour and cocoa, lightly beaten eggs and vanilla.

4. Pour mixture into prepared pan.

5. Bake at 150C for 1 to 1-1/2 hours. Test with skewer. Cool cake in pan.

Dark Chocolate Ganache

1.2 kg (2 lb 10 oz) dark chocolate, finely chopped

600 ml (21 fl oz) pure cream

Instructions

1. Put chocolate pieces in a large bowl

2. Put the cream in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Pour the cream over the chopped chocolate and mix with a whisk until the ganache is smooth. Do not use an electric whisk as you will create too many air bubbles in the ganache.

3. Allow to cool completely and then leave to set overnight.

For detailed instructions on how to make ganache and cover your cake with it click here

Creating the Tardis shape

1. Cut your cake into 4 small cakes, each 4″ x 4″.

2. Now cut each of these horizontally, giving you 8 pieces.

3. Make two cakes. The bottom cake will require 4 pieces filled with ganache sitting on the 4.5″ set up board. Also cover the top and sides with a thin crumb coat of ganache.

4. The top half is made up of 3 pieces sitting on the smaller 4″ set up board. Fill with ganache and again cover with a thin crumb coat of ganache.

5. Place the remaining 4″ board upside down on top of your bottom cake then place the top cake on top of this. Where the two cakes meet can eventually be separated when you cone to cut the cake. This will make it easy to cut elegant slices of cake.

6. Wait until your ganached cake firms up. You may need to put it in the fridge for half an hour.

6. You should now have one remaining 4.5″ board. Place it on top of the cake and use it as a guide to help you ganache the sides of the cake. If you use a set square you can run it along the sides of the cake using the 4.5″ boards at the top and bottom as a guide. Easy!

The final cake slice will be used as the roof so cut the sides off to make it a little smaller and cover it with ganache. You can cover it with blue/grey sugar paste as soon as the ganache forms up.

To cover in sugar paste, use a brush to apply a thin layer of water onto the ganache. Make a lid and attach. Measure the the height of the Tardis and the perimeter. Cut out the sugar paste a little larger and wrap around. Trim off the excess. The rough join is unimportant as corner pieces will eventually cover it.

3 Covered in sugar paste — Covered in sugar paste

4 Roof added — Attach the roof with a thin layer of water.

5 Neaten up the top edges — Add 4 thin pieces of sugar paste to neaten up the roof.

7 Cutting out the corners — Cutting out the corners using the width of the ruler as the width of the sugar paste.

8 Cutting out the door trim — Cutting slimmer strips to attach to the centre of each side.

9 Glueing on the trims — Paint on a little water to help each piece stick.

10 Adding more detail — Adding more detail

11 Cutting out the windows — Cutting out the windows. I used the width of my ruler as a guide but had to cut a little more off each to make a snug fit.

12 Roll out thin lines of sugar paste to make the small windows — Roll out thin lines of sugar paste to make the small windows

Use a dry paint brush to apply the dark blue petal dust to your cake. Use it to darken the shadows and to make the overall look distressed.

14 Tardis view from above — Tardis, view from above

16 Tardis Where the Wild Things Are — I used photoshop to place the Tardis cake on an image that I created a while back called ‘Where the Wild Things Are’. Details below

This photomanipulation is made up of several images. I took a picture of Callum on the boardwalk leading to the creek at Pottsville. I inverted the trees either side and added the steps from a picture taken at Norries Head, Cabarita. The fence is from a friend’s garden in Springbrook National Park. All the shadows on the boardwalk are just painted on in Photoshop and the birds are several shots of the one bird, a White-bellied Sea-Eagle, taken at Murwillumbah, flying overhead on the banks of the Tweed River near Dallis Park.

Balin and his Angry Birds birthday cake (picture taken by my good friend Jillian Merlot, Balin’s gran) I **had** to do a little post processing in Photoshop of course!

Make the 8″ square Dark Chocolate Mud Cake

500g unsalted butter

400g dark chocolate

10g (2 tablespoon) instant coffee

2-2/3 cups warm water

380g (2 cup) caster sugar

520g (3 cups) self raising flour

60g (1/2 cup) cocoa

4 eggs

2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Grease and line base and sides of cake pan with one thickness of baking paper, bringing paper 5cm above side of pan.

2. Combine chopped butter, chopped chocolate, coffee, and water in a saucepan.

Stir over low heat until chocolate is melted. Cool 15 minutes. Transfer mixture to bowl of mixer.

3. Add caster sugar to mixture and beat well until dissolved. Add sifted flour and cocoa, lightly beaten eggs and vanilla.

4. Pour mixture into prepared pan.

5. Bake at 150C for 1 hour 45 mins. Test with skewer. Cool cake in pan.

Make the Dark Chocolate Ganache

1.2 kg (2lb 10oz) dark chocolate, finely chopped

500ml (17.5 fl oz) pure cream

Method: Heat the cream until it just starts to bubble, pour over chocolate (which you have blitzed in the food processor to coffee granules size) and let it sit for about a minute to melt. Use a hand whisk to blend it all together then set aside to cool.

Your ganache at this point will be thin. You will have to let it set overnight until it thickens to a slightly thicker peanut butter consistency. Since I don’t have the patience to wait, I just let it cool to room temperature and then pop it in the fridge (don’t cover because you might get condensation). It would usually set in the fridge in about an hour or two. If it sets too hard, just microwave it in 10 second intervals (keep mixing it whenever you take it out).

For more information on how to make ganache and cover your cake with it, please click here.

I used the three images above as my inspiration. I tried to match the sizes, shapes and colours as I put together the birds, pigs and timbers. I also went online and played the game just to better understand the whole ‘Angry Birds’ thing.

I made all the pieces separately as they were being transported to the birthday party and with the cake being tall and slim (reflecting the 2D nature of the Angry Birds game) I was afraid that the cake would be top heavy and topple over in the car. I used cocktail sticks and wooden skewers to keep everything straight and the spikes came in handy for anchoring the timbers to the cake later on.

I made an 8″square dark chocolate mud cake and cut it in half and filled it with dark chocolate ganache. I then cut the cake up to resemble the online game silhouette finally covered the top and sides with the remaining ganache.