This 9″ Ballerina Shoes birthday cake is made from dark chocolate mud-cake and filled with dark chocolate ganache.
Materials
0.5 metres of 1 metre wide net
Glue gun
14″ cake board
2 x 9″ set up boards
Super Pearl Dust (Sweet Inspirations)
Hot Pink Twinkle dust (Global Sugar Art)
Clay gun
1.2 kg white sugar-paste
300g pink sugar-paste
Quilting mold
silver edible balls
Tylose powder
Make the 9″ round 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.
Assembling the cake
Cut the cake in half and fill with ganache.
Attach cake to set up board with edible glue or some Royal Icing.
Cover the top and the sides of the cake with ganache and smooth the surfaces.
Cover in white sugar-paste.
Press a quilting mold to the sides of the cake to make quilting effect or measure and indent with the side of a ruler.
Brush the top and sides of the cake with Super Pearl dust.
Use the other end of a paint brush to make holes for the silver balls and use some edible glue to attach them.
Add any lettering at this stage.
To make edible glue
Add 2 tablespoons of warm water to a quarter teaspoon of Tylose Powder and allow the Tylose powder to melt. Don’t worry if at this stage the glue appears not to be blending. Put a lid on the container and leave it in the refrigerator overnight and in the morning you will have a perfectly clear and ready to use glue.
The glue should be a dripping consistency. If it is too thick, just add a little more water and stir with a toothpick .
The edible glue should be stored in the refrigerator when not in use.
To apply the glue, use a good quality paintbrush and brush on to the area where you are going to be working. Leave until it begins to dry a little so that the area is just tacky to touch.
To make the tutu
Cut the net into 2 strips each 15 cms wide.
Join the strips with pins to make a 2 metre length then machine stitch along one long edge with the largest stitch on your machine.
Pull one of the threads to gather the fabric into the tightest circle possible and sew in place.
Place tutu onto a 14″ cake board and glue down with a glue gun.
Use a 9″ set up board to sit on top and glue this on with a glue gun. Place a 5 kilo bag of flour (or something heavy) on top till set.
Trim your tutu so that it sticks out about 1 cm from the edge of your cake board.
Place your cake (which should be on a matching 9″ set up board) on top using your glue gun or PVA glue to stick it down.
Ballet Shoe template
To make the Ballet Shoes
Print out the shoe template onto thin card so that the sole measures 14 cm in length and cut them out.
Use the templates to cut out 2 soles and two toes in pink sugar-paste and remember as we work through the rest of the instructions that you are aiming to make a left and right shoe.
Use edible glue to attach the uppers to the soles. I turned a little of the edge of the upper under the sole but I think it might have looked better just to join them edge to edge.
Fill the shoes with cotton wool to keep their shape (the cotton wool stuck a little to some glued edges so I would recommend scrunched cling film instead).
Leave shoes overnight to harden.
Next day remove packing and add the stitched band around the top of the shoe by cutting and glueing a narrow strip of pink sugar-paste around the top edge of each shoe and use a cocktail stick to make the little holes.
Making the shoes
Use the clay gun to make the little bows and glue them in place with edible glue.
Dust the shoes inside and out with pink twinkle dust and attach to cake with edible glue. I also used a cocktail stick to anchor the toe of the angled shoe to the cake as the cake was travelling by car to the birthday girl.
Cut out 4 long strips of pink sugar-paste to make the ribbon ties and dust them on both sides before glueing them to the shoes.
Brush more pink dust over the shoes where needed.
Ballet shoes cake topperBallet shoes cake bow
Use a ribbon in the same shade as the tutu, around the base of the cake and make a bow for the front.
Dark Chocolate Mud Cake (from Planet Cake Cookbook)
Ingredients for 7″ cake
135 g butter
135 g dark choc
15 g coffee
100 ml water
75 g SR
75 g plain
30 g cocoa
1/4 tsp bicarb
300 g caster
3 eggs
5 tsp oil
60 ml buttermilk
Dark Chocolate Ganache
735 g dark chocolate, finely chopped
365 ml pure cream
Fondant
BLACK: 800g sugar-paste to cover entire cake
YELLOW: 300g Mask and number plate
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.
Cut out all the separate pieces of the mask and use them as templates to cut out the pieces of yellow sugar-paste.
Attach each piece to the top of the cake making sure that the pieces are in the right place.
To make the plaque and the number 4, simply cut out a square of yellow and attach it with some Royal Icing, edible glue or water to the front of the cake.
Cut out a number 4 in yellow and another in black with a cutter and attach, first the yellow and then the black.
If you would like to find out how to make this 5.5″ Red Transformer Cake Click Here.
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!
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