star wars – cakes

Jawa Cake Tutorial

Published on December 9, 2013March 1, 2015 by Bernice CamlinLeave a comment

This cake does not require any sugar paste which is excellent news for children who dislike sugar paste or the decorator who dislikes using sugar paste. The Chocolate ganache finish is a little rustic but suits our cheeky little Jawa well. There are no real instructions for sculpting this cake as I mostly used my fingers and a small pallette knife. The chocolate ganache behaves a bit like clay and when it gets a bit soft you just pop it in the fridge to firm up again. Ingredients for Chocolate Mud Cake I used 3 round cake pans 5″, 5.5″ and a 6″. The eyes are two yellow sweets (lollies) with a sugar coating.

435g butter
350g dark chocolate
2 tblsp instant coffee powder
2.5 cups warm water
330g caster sugar
360g SR flour
60g cocoa powder
4 eggs
2tsp vanilla

method:

Grease and line base and sides of the bowls with one thickness of baking paper, bringing paper 5cm above side of pan.
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 large mixer.
Add caster sugar to mixture and beat well until dissolved. Add sifted flour and cocoa, lightly beaten eggs and vanilla.
Pour mixture into prepared bowls.
Bake at 150C for 1 hours. Test with skewer. Cool cakes in their pans.

Ingredients for the Ganache to fill and cover Jawa’s head and body (for more information on making and using ganache click here)

1 x 600ml pure cream
1,900g dark chocolate

method:

Place pieces of chocolate in food processor and process till chocolate looks like coffee granules.
Put the cream in a saucepan and bring to boiling point. Pour the cream over the chocolate and mix with a hand whisk until the ganache is smooth. (Do not use an electric whisk, as you will create too many air bubbles in the ganache.)
Allow to cool completely and then leave to set overnight.
Ready for the oven

Proccess the chocolate to the size of coffee granules

To assemble the cake

(Sorry that I have no pictures for this part, I must have been so caught up in my work that I forgot to use my camera!) I cut all 3 cakes through the middle and filled them with ganache. I started with the smallest cake and shaped it roughly into a head shape, covered it in ganache roughly and put it in the fridge to harden a bit. Then I stacked the two largest cakes one on top of the other with the largest at the bottom. I inserted a wooden dowel down through the middle of the cake with a portion left sticking up through with a point on the end so that I could slide the head on. I used ganache to help stick the head to the body. I used the pieces of cut off cake ( I mixed the cake with some ganache to make it easy to mould) to help mould the Jawa shape e.g. his knee and foot but not his arms at this stage. Place in the fridge to firm up again. Cover all exposed areas of cake with a thin layer of ganache (crumb coat) Place in fridge to firm up.

I used this image as inspiration for my cake.

To build up the arms I used a few cocktail sticks and layered the ganache slowly adding to the size and shape while still popping the cake in the fridge to firm up each stage before continuing. I had a few saggy moments but that only made me more careful and determined to make it work. I made the gun in the same way and added it at the very end with the help of 2 toothpicks. I enjoyed mouling the shape with my hands and although it looks like s..t to begin with it soon starts to take shape and creating the hood and sleeves is just magic!

Making the top and bottom parts of the gun

I added some raw caster sugar at the base to look like sand.

Some more of my Star Wars Cake Tutorials

Click on the images below to go straight to the corresponding tutorial.

: Lego Millennium Falcon Cake

: Death Star Cake

Jawa Star Wars Chocolate Cake

Lego Millennium Falcon Cake

Published on October 9, 2012December 9, 2013 by Bernice Camlin25 Comments

Nothing evokes nostalgia quite like Lego and Star Wars! Embrace that feeling by following the steps in this tutorial to create a dark chocolate Lego-style Millennium Falcon!

This cake is built around an 8″ round dark chocolate mud cake but you will also need a 6″ round dark chocolate mud cake to make the Cockpit and Forward Mandibles not to mention the Concussion – Missile Tubes!!!!!! I have given instructions on how to make a 10″ round cake and this will produce enough batter to fill the 6″ and 8″ pans.

Materials

white card

Mud cake

375g unsalted butter

300g dark chocolate

1.5 tablespoon instant coffee

2 cups warm water

1.5 cup caster sugar

2.25 cups self raising flour

3/8 cup cocoa

3 eggs

1.5 teaspoon vanilla

Ganache

1200g dark chocolate

600ml pure cream

2kg grey sugar-paste

a small amount of black sugar-paste

1. Making the set up board

Print out this picture of the Millennium Falcon onto an A4 sheet of paper so that the image fills the page and this will give you the actual size of your finished ship (i.e. 8″ diameter of the large round part of the ship) . You will need two prints as you will be cutting one of them up.

Cut out the shape of the ship in white card or add the extra bits to an 8″ round board as I have done in the picture. This set up board (as it is called) will help you to cut out your pieces of cake and also help when applying the ganache to the sides of your cake. More of that later.

2. Covering the cake board

Use the underside of a Lego base board to give you the brick impression.

Press down firmly and evenly to get the best results

Although some bits of my cake board are a little flat, the ship will cover them.

3. Making the Lego shapes

Use the plan view of the Millennium Falcon to plan and cut out the shapes that you need.

I decided on making mostly triangular shapes and as I cut each one out I placed it on top of the plan view to see how they would all fit together. Once each shape had been cut out, press the Lego board on top to make it look like Lego bricks then neaten up the edges if they have spread a little due to the pressure.

To make the satellite dish, cut out a circle of grey sugar-paste and leave it to harden on the back of a tablespoon to give it a beautiful spherical look. Attach a thick triangle of sugar-paste to its base with edible glue or egg white.

4. Bake the cake

1. Grease and line base and sides of cake pans 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 pans. Use a skewer to check that both pans have the same depth of batter. This will ensure that both cakes end up the same height.

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

5. Making the ganache

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). Click here to find out all you need to know about making and applying ganache to your cake.

6. Putting the cake together

Use the smaller cake to cut out the cockpit and Mandibles. Lay the templates on top of the cake and cut around them with a sharp knife. Now cut all your pieces in half ready for the ganache filling.

Use a non-slip mat under your set-up board then stick your pieces to the board with some ganache.

Use ganache to stick all the pieces to each other.

Now add a nice thick layer of ganache across the top as the filling for your cake.

Place the top half of the cake on top of the ganache remembering to stick the pieces together with ganache.

Cover the top and sides of the cake with remaining ganache.

7. Icing the cake

Roll out a large oval of grey sugar-paste making sure it is large enough to cover the cake plus a few centimetres more.

Getting the sugar-paste neatly in and around the Millennium Falcon shape is probably the most difficult part of making this cake. It might be simpler to make the cockpit and mandibles serarately and attach them to the body of the cake after you apply the sugar-paste. Anyway, it doesn’t have to be mega neat as most of the ship will be covered in Lego shapes!

8. Candles

Insert sparkles or candles at the back to resemble thrusters and your done!

Star Wars Death Star Cake

Published on August 8, 2012April 12, 2014 by Bernice CamlinLeave a comment

This Death Star Cake was such fun to make that you just won’t know when to stop! It is made of Dark Chocolate Mud Cake and filled and covered in Dark Chocolate Ganache then grey Sugar-paste. Use two 8.5″ or 9″ metal kitchen bowls to bake the cakes.

Dark Chocolate Mud Cake

Ingredients

to fill two 8.5″ metal bowls

500g unsalted butter

500g dark chocolate

2 tablespoon instant coffee

2-2/3 cups warm water

3 cups self raising flour

2 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup cocoa

4 eggs

2 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions:

1. Grease and line base and sides of bowls 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 bowls.

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

Dark Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients

1.2 kg dark chocolate

500ml pure cream

If you prefer a really soft filling for your cakes then just whip ½ cup cream and add 2 tbsp of the Ganache and whip a little more. This makes a delicious and easy chocolate mousse.

For more information on ganaching your cake click here.

Sugarpaste

750g in grey to cover Death Star

350g in black to cover board

360g in dark grey for stick on blocks

Royal Icing

to decorate the blocks

250-300g pure icing sugar, sifted
2-4 drops acetic acid (white vinegar)
1 egg white

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. Add black edible colour until the correct shade of grey is achieved. Fill a pipping bag fitted with a number 1 tip.

Step 1. Line tins with greaseproof paper and add a collar of around 20 cms.

Step 2. Bake the cakes and place on 9″ round thin cake boards. Fill and cover in ganache using the instructions above. Make sure that the bottom half of the cake has a flat bottom to sit on.

Step 3. Cover with sugar-paste. If you would like to find out how to colour sugarpaste and use it to cover your cake click here

Step 4. Insert 4 thin plastic dowels as shown and one thick one in the middle which will fit over the small wooden dowel which has been inserted into the base board by first drilling a hole in the middle of the board. These plastic dowels can easily be cut with scissors.

Do not assemble the cakes on the base board until all decoration is fully complete.

The dowel in the centre locates into the hollow dowel in the cake base and helps anchor the cake to the board especially if travelling by car.

Step 5. Roll out the dark grey sugar-paste as thin as you can and cut out all the shapes that you think you will need. Glue them onto the cakes with edible glue (or a little water) and pipe with the Royal Icing making up your designs as you go. Use the pictures of the finished Death Star as a guide only.

Step 6. Roll out the black sugar-paste making a little hole in the centre. Slip the hole over the dowel in the centre and cover the cake board. Lift up the sugar-paste and paint on a little water underneath to help the sugar-paste stick to the board.
Add a little icing or edible glue around the wooden dowel. Slip the bottom half of the Death Star onto the dowel. To attach the top half of the Death Star apply PVA glue to the cake boards or use a knife to spread on some icing. Make sure the concave circle is facing forward and is centralised.