Rainbow Cake

Rainbow Cake

This cake is similar to my Rainbow Layer Cake. Full instructions for making the Rainbow Layer Cake can be found here.

A slice of Rainbow Layer Cake

I made this cake for Linda’s birthday.  Her husband secretly ordered it from me and I thought that such a romantic gesture wouldn’t be complete without some love hearts!

It really is as simple to make as the photos look – you dye the cake batter, pour into the pans and bake!

It is based on a white mud cake, filled with white chocolate ganache and covered in sugar paste

This cake was so much fun to make and eat!  I love the surprised look on peoples faces when you pull out the first slice ~ Rainbow cake is something that makes everyone smile 🙂

If you need more information on how to make ganache and cover your cake with it just click here.

Two things make this cake special

1. The Rainbow Inside. A really big surprise if the recipient and/or guests have no idea what is inside.

2. The cake is based on a White Chocolate Mud Cake. Lots of people are scarred to use colours with Chocolate mud cakes if they do not have the special chocolate colours. I did a lot of research before I used my ordinary food colours and the reason they work is because we are not colouring 100% pure chocolate. The other ingredients magically make it alright to use Wilton or AmeriColor (these are the only two makes that I have tried so far).

7″ White Chocolate Mud Cake (Planet Cake recipe)

I used 2 x 7″ pans
180g butter
180g white chocolate
160ml water
195g SR flour
180g plain flour
240g caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence


Ganache

780g white chocolate, finely chopped
270g pure cream
Sugarpaste

730g yellow sugar paste

small amounts of orange, red, purple, blue and green sugar paste
White Chocolate Mud Cake Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
2. Grease and line bases of both cake pans with baking paper.
3. Combine chopped butter and water in a saucepan.
4. Stir over low heat until butter is melted. Turn off heat, then add the chocolate and stir until it has melted and is well combined.
5. Sift flours into a bowl. Add sugar, a pinch of salt and make a well in the centre.
6. Pour chocolate mixture, egg and vanilla into the well then stir with a wooden spoon until well combined.
7. Divide the batter equally amongst the 6 bowls. Weigh your mixing bowl before you begin adding ingredients and then subtract the weight of the bowl from the final measurement after the batter is completed. Divide that number by six and add that weight of batter to each bowl, and then whisk a fair amount of the appropriate food colour into each bowl. Keep in mind that the color of the unbaked batter will be the color of the baked batter.
8. I poured 5/6th of the red batter into the pan that would be the top tier. I spread it out a little to touch the sides of the pan and be a little thinner in the middle.
9. I then poured 4/6th of the orange batter in the middle of the pan on top of the red. I moved it about a little to make a good circle.
10. I then poured 3/6th (i.e. 1/2) of the yellow batter on top followed by the green, blue then purple.
11. In the second pan that would be the bottom tier, I first of all poured 5/6th of the purple batter followed by the blue, green, yellow, orange and finally red.
12. Bake for 30 -35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when poked into the middle of the cakes.
13. Leave in tins to cool completely on a wire rack.
14. When cool, cut the domes off both cake and sandwich together with white ganache making sure that the bottom tier is placed upside down to create the design in my picture at the top of this post.

White Ganache

1. Place chocolate pieces in a large bowl.
2. Put the cream in a saucepan and bring to boiling point. Pour the cream over the chopped chocolate and mix with a hand whisk until the ganache is smooth.
3. Allow to cool completely and then leave to set overnight, if possible.

Colours of the rainbow

Coloured cake batter

Ready for the oven

Cooling on a wire rack

Rainbow Cake

Rainbow Cake

Rainbow Cake

Rainbow Cake

Rainbow Cake

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Valentine Heart Cookies Tutorial

This year I made my Valentine Heart Cookies from gingerbread. I did this as I will be selling them at Pottsville Beach Markets on Sunday 5th February 2012 and the biscuits will have to keep for a couple of weeks. Gingerbread easily keeps for a month in cello bags and is my best choice but if you would rather make a Buttery Sugar Cookie recipe then click here.

 

 

Gingerbread Cookies

90g butter

150g soft brown sugar

90g golden/corn syrup

425g Plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

2tsp ground ginger

1tsp mixed spice

1 medium egg (beaten)

Gently heat butter, sugar and syrup until dissolved.. Cool slightly for five mins.

Pre-heat oven 180C and lightly grease baking trays.

Sift flour, baking powder and spices tog into mixing bowl and make a well in centre.

Add melted mixture and egg into the centre. Bind tog with knife then use hands to form soft dough.

Sprinkle work surface with flour and roll out the gingerbread to 3mm (1/8in).

Bake in centre of oven for 13 mins.

Transfer cooked gingerbread to a cooling rack.

Outline and fill the cookies at the same time using RI (Royal Icing) with a number 2 piping nozzle and remember that RI takes 24 hours to set.

Royal icing
Traditional royal icing is made with real egg white, however, because of the slight chance of salmonella poisoning, I now prefer to use dried egg white instead.
20g (3/4 oz) dried egg white
90ml (2.5fl oz) cold water
500g (1lb 2 0z) icing sugar

method
Mix egg white and water in a bowl until smooth.
Sieve the icing sugar into a grease free bowl.
Tip in the egg mixture and beat on the slowest speed for 5 mins until the icing stands up in peaks.

Planet Cake Royal Icing using real egg whites.
250-300g pure icing sugar, sifted
2-4 drops acetic acid (white vinegar)
1 egg whitemethod
Beat icing sugar, acetic acid and egg white with electric beater on medium-high speed for 4 minutes for ‘soft peak’. Add extra sugar if the icing is too soft.
Achieving the right consistency for Royal Icing can be difficult but practise makes perfect, so if icing is too thick or too thin just empty your piping bag and add more water/vinegar or icing sugar. You will soon work it out.

Place icing in airtight plastic bowl with a lid. Lay a piece of cling film directly on top of the icing and replace the lid.

DONT put the cookies in an airtight container until they are set (24 hours to set) need the air to help dry out.

Pipe on your designs once the cookies are set using a number 1 piping nozzle. If you would like to use my designs then click on the image above to enlarge and then copy the same or similar on your cookies. For the straight lines, in particular, touch the cookie with the nozzle at the beginning and end of line only, pulling your line of icing in the air. This way you get the straightest line possible. For the heart-shaped outlines you sort of hold the nozzle above your cookie and let the icing gently fall/glide into place. Do not drag the nozzle along the cookie surface at any time. Very few of my cookies are identical as I adapt my designs as I go. Feel free to experiment. If you would like to make these cookies using a Buttery Sugar Cookie recipe then click here.

Spiderman Cake

The idea for this cake came from the Spiderman 4 wallpaper below

I copied the spider and the number 4 to cut out in black and red sugar paste.

If you would like a larger sized spider  to print out just visit my ‘Free Stuff’ page.

The cake itself is a 7″ round Dark Chocolate Mud Cake filled and covered in Dark Chocolate Ganache and sugar-paste.

Ingredients

135g butter

135g dk choc

15g coffee

100ml water

75g SR

75g plain

30g cocoa

.3 tsp bicarb

295g caster

2.5 eggs

4.5 tsp oil

60ml buttermilk

Ganache

735g dark chocolate

365ml pure cream

Fondant

740g  red sugar-paste, I used Cake Art coloured sugar-paste

75g black sugar-paste, I used Cake Art coloured sugar-paste

The fondant can be make by colouring white (Ready to Roll) RTR fondant such as Bakels or the supermarket alternative, Orchard with red gel colour such as Wilton gel or Americolor.

For directions on how to make the cake click here but please note that cooking time for the 7″ round cake is approximately 1hr 20mins at 150C. For more help making and using ganache click here.

I piped the spider’s web in black RI (Royal Icing). Click here for the recipe.

I used one quarter of the recipe (the egg powder recipe) and had more than enough. Use a 12″ piping bag with a #2 tip

To make the spider, roll out the black sugar-paste quite thinly and leave it for an hour or two to harden a little before cutting out your shapes using the template.

Spiderman cake plus those eyes

Transformers Cake Tutorial

This was a small 5.5″ diameter cake to feed 10 children.

Dark Chocolate Mud Cake (from Planet Cake Cookbook)

Ingredients for 5.5″ cake

80g  butter

80g  dark choc

10g  coffee

60ml  water

50g  SR

50g  plain

20g  cocoa

1/4 tsp  bicarb

180g  caster

1.5  eggs

3  tsp oil

40ml  buttermilk

Dark Chocolate Ganache 

450g dark chocolate, finely chopped

225ml pure cream

Fondant

RED: 600g sugar-paste to cover entire cake

GREY: 200g Background for mask and number plate

BLACK: 200g Mask and number

To find out how to make the mud-cake and ganache filling please visit my Ben Ten Cake blogTo Decorate your Transformer Cake

Download the shape below from here and resize to fit your cake if necessary and print it out. Then cut out the basic outline. Use this as a template to cut out a slightly larger (2 cms) shape which you will use to cut out the blank grey sugar-paste background for the mask.

Attach the grey shape to the cake using a little Royal Icing to stick it down.

Next, cut out all the separate pieces of the mask and use them as templates to cut out the pieces of black sugar-paste.

Attach each piece to the grey background making sure that the pieces are in the right place.

To make the plaque and the number 5, simply cut out a square of grey and attach it with some Royal Icing to the front of the cake.
Make an indent at each corner of the plaque with the end of a small paint brush (or similar) roll 4 small balls of grey sugar-paste and place in the holes with a tiny drop of water painted on as glue. Cut out a number 5 in black with a cutter and attach.

To transfer the letters onto the board just stick your printed word onto the board with sticky tape and trace round each letter with a pointed metal tip pressing quite heavily. You will see the imprint of the lettering on the board if you look closely.

Pipe the letters with some Royal Icing

I designed this image with a maori influence for a  T-shirt printer in Burieigh. Who would have thought I would be making a TF cake not long after!

Happy Valentine’s Day Cookies Tutorial

Here is another treat for you to make for your loved one this Valentine’s day!

These cookies are not difficult to make and are decorated with Royal Icing and can be as simple or elaborate as you like.

 

I now use this gorgeous recipe for all my cookies. The cream cheese gives them a lovely flavour and texture and the consistency of the dough makes it easy to cut out shapes with cutters.

 

Buttery Sugar Cookies

250g softened butter

85g of softened cream cheese

150g (3/4 cup) caster sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

510g (3 cups) plain flour

Cream butter and cream cheese using K beater until light and fluffy. Add sugar egg & vanilla. Beat at a medium speed scraping down the side of the bowl often until creamy.

Reduce speed to low and add flour, beat very lightly until combined again scraping down the bowl.

Divide dough into 2 equal portions and wrap in plastic warp and refrigerate until firm (at least 2 hours). Or place in freezer for when you need them.The dough can last up to a week in a airtight container…they do go a little soft, but suppose to be like that…(not a crunchy biscuit)

Heat oven to 160 (fan). Sometimes I even lower the temp to 150, they don’t take long to cook, just enough so when you lightly touch them they do not make an indent in the cookie.


 Roll out dough on baking paper. 

Cut out cookies and bake for 7 to 10 mins until edges are very lightly browned. 

Click here to find out how to make and use my cookie dough leveller!

 

Remove from cooking sheets and cool completely on wire rack.

 

Outline and fill the cookies at the same time using RI (Royal Icing) with a number 2 piping nozzle and remember that RI takes 24 hours to set.

Royal Icing
Traditional royal icing is made with real egg white, however, because of the slight chance of salmonella poisoning, I now prefer to use dried egg white instead.
20g (3/4 oz) dried egg white
90ml (2.5fl oz) cold water
500g (1lb 2 0z) icing sugar


method
Mix egg white and water in a bowl until smooth.
Sieve the icing sugar into a grease free bowl.
Tip in the egg mixture and beat on the slowest speed for 5 mins until the icing stands up in peaks.

Planet Cake Royal Icing using real egg whites.
250-300g pure icing sugar, sifted
2-4 drops acetic acid (white vinegar)
1 egg white

method
Beat icing sugar, acetic acid and egg white with electric beater on medium-high speed for 4 minutes for ‘soft peak’. Add extra sugar if the icing is too soft.
Achieving the right consistency for Royal Icing can be difficult but practise makes perfect, so if icing is too thick or too thin just empty your piping bag and add more water/vinegar or icing sugar. You will soon work it out.

Place icing in airtight plastic bowl with a lid. Lay a piece of cling film directly on top of the icing and replace the lid.

DONT put the cookies in an airtight container until they are set (24 hours to set) need the air to help dry out..

Pipe on your designs once the cookies are set using a number 2 piping nozzle. If you would like to use my designs then click on the image above to enlarge and then copy the same or similar on your cookies. 
For the straight lines, in particular, touch the cookie with the nozzle at the beginning and end of line only, pulling your line of icing in the air. This way you get the straightest line possible. For the heart-shaped outlines you sort of hold the nozzle above your cookie and let the icing gently fall/glide into place. Do not drag the nozzle along the cookie surface at any time. Very few of my cookies are identical as I adapt my designs as I go. Feel free to experiment.

Suggested timeline for making the Valentine’s Day Cookies: Day One – Baking Day Two – Outlining, filling, and letting cookies dry overnight. Day Three – Detail piping These lovely little cookies last for ages, just keep on eating the odd one to make sure the rest are fresh, LOL! Remember to keep them out of strong sunlight so that the colours don’t fade.

Another little artwork to brighten up your day!