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Monday 12 March 2012

A whale of a cake!

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As a part of the Spanish Fiesta, it was also a friends birthday. So I decided to make a cake for him, and we have an inside joke of him and whales. So I decided to make a whale of a cake! 

To make the cake, I used a template that was provided by 'Women's weekly Kids' party cakes'. 
This was a pretty cool cake to make, but it definitely wasn't one of my best. The edges of the cake were slightly burnt (including the base), but luckily most were cut off when cutting out the whale. Another component is that it was rushed, so the spreading of the icing wasn't as neat as I would have liked. Despite those little disappointment, the cake tasted yummy!


I doubled the recipe to make the whale cake as it was baked in a deep 26cm by 36cm baking dish. The recipe below makes a standard deep 20cm round cake.


Chocolate Marble Mud cake (Recipe guided by Australian Women's Weekly: Chocolate Cakes)
Ingredients
250g butter, chopped
150g white chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cups plain flour, sifted
1/2 cup self raising flour, sifted
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tbsp cocoa powder




Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease baking dish/pan.
2. Combine butter, white chocolate, sugar and milk in a saucepan over medium heat (do not boil), continuously stir until smooth and all sugar and chocolate has dissolved.
3. Transfer mixture into a large bowl and leave to cool for 15 minutes.
4. Whisk in sifted flours into the white chocolate mixture.

5. Then whisk in essence and egg. (The mixture should feel thicker and heavier at this stage).
6. Separate the mixture into 2 bowl.
7. Sift the cocoa powder into one of the bowl and combine.
8. Spoon the mixtures into the prepared dish/pan. Alternating between the 2 mixtures.
9. Once filled, use a skewer and swirl the mixture to create a marbled effect.
10. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until skewer comes out cleanly.
11. Leave to cool.


Cream Cheese Icing (enough for 24 cupcakes)
Ingredients
115g butter, softened

225g Philadelphia cream cheese block, softened
3 cups icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla essence or extract

Method:
1. Using an electric mixer (or hand held mixer), combine butter and cream cheese until well combine.
2. Slowly add spoonfuls of icing sugar into the butter/cream cheese mixture, ensuring well combined after each edition.
3. Using a spatula, wipe down the side every now and then.
4. Once all combined, add vanilla and mix. (Also add any colours at this stage, for the whale I left about a cup uncoloured, and the coloured the rest blue.)
5. Refrigerate until ready to use.





Assembling the whale
I made the cake a day in advance, so I had a completely cooled cake to work with. First I traced the template of the whale onto grease proof paper, cut it out and placed it on the cooled cake. Using a serrated knife, I cut around the template and there was my whale. With the left over edges I created the fin and blow hole.



I forgot to take photos of my other processes, but I did a crumb layer of chocolate ganache and then did the icing. As for final touches I used black writing icing for the eye, mouth and the under part of the whale. I decorated the edges with some thickened cream (that was whipped) to hide my bad looking edges.


I hope that everyone who had the cake enjoyed it. And a last HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THANH VU!

Good food, Good times!