Saturday, August 19, 2017

Caterpillar Cake for Hallowe'en or a Wonderland Birthday Party


Image result for Caterpillar Cake for Hallowe'en
This celebration cake is a combination of sponge cake and cheesecake (so there will be something to cater for all tastes) and is extremely versatile. The version in the pictures was an Alice in Wonderland caterpillar for a teenager's Alice themed birthday party, but with a little imagination and food colouring, could be made into something truly gross (but delicious) for the Hallowe'en table.

Recipe (Sponge Base, used for Mushroom/Toadstool)

Ingredients:
  • 5 eggs
  • 5 oz caster sugar
  • 4 oz plain white flour
  • 1.5 oz cocoa powder
  • 2 oz butter (melted)
  • pinch salt
The base is made from a whisked sponge which I've flavoured with chocolate. If you prefer plain sponge, use 5 oz plain flour and omit the 1.5 oz cocoa powder. You can also add a teaspoonful of strong coffee essence at the final folding in stage or a little grated orange or lemon zest for different flavour combinations.
After baking the cake you can decorate your table with some Halloween horror stickers and can place the cake right at the middle of it.

Method for Sponge Base

Prepare a shallow baking tray (Swiss roll tin) by lining with foil or greaseproof paper. Brush all over with a little melted butter and shake a spoonful of caster sugar and a little flour onto the melted butter (tap the tin against your hand to distribute the sugar/flour evenly over the butter). This gives the sponge a nice finish as well as making it turn out more easily.
Place the 5 oz sugar in a large, heatproof mixing bowl over a saucepan of hot water. Add the eggs and whisk until the mixture has more than doubled in volume, is pale golden and mousse like and leaves a ribbon trail when you take the whisk out (see picture). You really need to do this by hand over hot water, an electric whisk will give a much more biscuity texture.
Add the sifted flour gradually (sift the cocoa powder in with the flour if used) alternately with the melted butter. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and cook for (about) twenty minutes in a moderate oven (180C,300F Gas Mark 4). The sponge needs to be springy to touch and coming away slightly from the edges of the tin.
When the cake is quite cool, cut two circles (use a tea plate as a guide) out of it, spread with the filling of your choice and sandwich together. Cover the top with a thin layer of coloured butter icing and decorate with multi-coloured spots to make the mushroom surface. Place at one end of a large serving plate

Caterpillar (ingredients)

  • two packets of ginger biscuits
  • 2 oz melted chocolate
  • 6 oz marscapone or cream cheese
  • 4 oz whipped cream
  • small tin of pineapple pieces, crystallised ginger or candied peel if liked
  • food colouring
  • small tubes of writing icing

Caterpillar (Method)

Dip the top edges of the ginger biscuits in chocolate, reserving one or two undipped for the face (allow one or two extra for mistakes). Whip the cream, combine carefully with the marscapone. Add the finely chopped pineapple, ginger or peel if used.
Begin to build the caterpillar by sandwiching the ginger biscuits together with the marscapone mix keeping the dipped edges together. Make the tail at one end of the plate, bring the body up onto the mushroom base and build a tower for the caterpillar's neck and head. Keep the chocolate dipped edges at the top to give definition and show up against the icing. Draw a face with writing icing on the topmost (unchocolated) biscuit of the tower. Add antennae made from cocktail sticks and little pieces of leftover sponge cake covered in cake glitter to finish.
Decorate with multi-coloured spots, chocolate trails, cake glitter or food colouring as required. For maximum Hallowe'en effect, you can colour the marscapone/cream mixture before you start to build the caterpillar.
This is such a versatile cake which can be made fairly plain or highly flavoured and decorated depending on the occasion.


Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Weddings Cakes - lilies

Wedding cakes and lilies calla, pink, orange and white lilies:











Chocolate Cake is a Popular Flavor








One of the most popular flavors of cake is chocolate cake. There are many different flavors of ice cream that you can put together with a slice of chocolate cake. Typically, people will have cake and ice-cream as a part of a birthday celebration. However, you should make sure that you choose a flavor of ice-cream that will go along with your chocolate cake. This will not be difficult to do because most any flavor goes along with chocolate extremely well. Most of the chocolate cakes that you find will either have vanilla or chocolate icing. You can even have strawberry icing on a chocolate cake.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Pink Flower Wedding Cake Designs

Wedding cakes designed with pink flowers:




Take Your Time when Choosing a Wedding Cake

When you are preparing for a wedding, then chances are high that you have already been searching for wedding cakes. Choosing the perfect wedding cake for your big day is not a decision that should be taken lightly. You will have a lot of decisions to make when it comes to choosing a wedding cake. There is a plethora of different things that can be done to make your wedding cake unique. There is a wide variety of different flavors and decorations that you can choose from. You will have to take your time when you are choosing one of these kinds of cakes.










Wedding cakes designed with flowers:

 

 


Monday, October 8, 2012

Have a Slice of Cake for Dessert


Having a slice of cake is a wonderful idea for a dessert. You will find that there are many different kinds of cake that you can have a slice of. Most cakes have icing on top of them. The icing does not have to be the same flavor of the cake, but it should complement it. For example, while you can use chocolate icing on a mint cake, you would not want to use strawberry icing on a mint cake because this will not taste good. There are a lot of people that enjoy eating cake either as a part of a celebration or just as a dessert.



 


 




Sunday, October 7, 2012

Making a Cake from Scratch

Simple fondant cake

Simple birthday cakes

Simple square cakes


Simple wedding cakes

Simple cakes

If you are preparing for a celebration, then you may have considered making a cake from scratch. It is not difficult to make simple cakes. These kinds of cakes are typically a single layer, and they will have icing on top of them. If you have a talent for icing a cake, then you may want to get creative with this part. However, if you only have very basic skills as far as icing a cake is concerned, then it would be a good idea for you to just put icing on the cake without incorporating a lot of details.

Birthday Cake is a Popular Tradition


 


 
 

There are a number of different traditions that go along with celebrating a birthday. One of the most popular traditions is eating a birthday cake. Most birthday cakes will have happy birthday as well as the person's name on it. Most people will put a candle on the cake for each year that the person has been alive. However, once the person becomes so old, you may find it difficult to put enough candles on the cake. You can then use candles that are made into the shapes of numbers. This will save a lot of space on the cake because you will only be using two candles if you use this method.

Friday, July 27, 2012

The Birthday Cake and its Candles



No birthday will ever be complete without the blowing of the candles on a cake. All kinds of occasions call for the serving of a cake, be it a promotion to work or leaving work, a baby shower or the opening of a restaurant for the first time. But the birthday cake will always have a candle when the celebration calls for the candle blowing tradition. Usually, the age of the birthday celebrant will be represented by the number of candles, but a more modern cake will only have one candle in the shape of the numeric value or other important symbols for the birthday celebrant.

A Child and his Birthday Cake

A child’s birthday party is never without a birthday cake. Birthday cakes for children are usually designed and come in the form of their favorite cartoons, superhero idols, or even video game characters. The birthday party theme is usually the guide to selecting the cake for the little one. But most children these days prefer to design and decorate their own cakes. Some would like to see all of their favorite cartoon characters on their cake, even if these characters are coming from different shows. Sometimes, they even include video game personalities and will even supply their own background as the setting.

Easy to Make Cake Flag



Are you preparing a cake flag for your family to celebrate a coming national holiday? Baking a cake flag is one way of encouraging patriotism among your kids. Making a cake flag is relatively easy. You just need different icing colors to decorate your cake. You can also use other materials to decorate your cake. Strawberries, for example, can be healthy decorative pieces you can use to fill up the red area of your cake flag. You can use strawberries for the red stripes of the American flag. Blueberries, on the other hand, can be used to fill blue areas of your cake flag.

How to make Oreo Ice Cream Cake



The Cake and its Flavors

Chocolate Cake

There was just the ever famous chocolate cake not a long time ago. And your usual variety of vanilla, butter, strawberry, and blueberry flavored cakes. But as the world gets to discover new food technologies and the constant demand for new things to excite the taste buds, bakers and cake experts have come up slowly with exotic and exciting cake flavors such as coffee flavored cakes, fruit cakes with alcohol, vegetable cakes, cakes with meat components, cakes made of flowers, and even vegan cakes. The constant challenge for bakers and cake artists is to come up with new concepts not only in the taste but as well as the presentation of the cake.

The Wonders Bought by a Chocolate Cake


A chocolate cake can be considered one of the most preferred cakes of all times. Not only because of its delectable taste that could capture the liking of people from all generations, but mostly because it is composed of a one of a kind ingredient which is the chocolate. Chocolates can be pretty sinful and has the ability to uplift, enhance and stir emotions in people. Chocolates could be a representation of love for it was believed that it has a unique element that could make do with people’s feelings toward other people.  You can have chocolate cakes anytime you want or even have it specially made for you.

Where to Get Inspirations for Your Wedding Cake

Wedding Cake

One of the things that couples have to decide on before the wedding day is the design of the wedding cake. If your wedding will be soon and you have not yet decided on the design of your cake, you may want to get inspiration from images of wedding cakes that are posted online. You can get inspiration from photos of cakes online and see if you can mix and match concepts for your own wedding cake. You may also want to check catalogues provided by chef artists and cake shops and see if they have designs beautiful enough for your wedding day.

Unique Birthday Cake Ideas

You can start making birthdays extremely special by choosing a unique birthday cake that would highlight the occasion. You can have these kinds of cake specially made for you so that nothing would go wrong. First, you can consider having a traditional looking cake but additional elements that would elevate it from being ordinary to one of a kind level. Make use of elements that would represent the personality of the celebrants, have them frosted up and added as enhancers to the said cake.  Second, you can have the celebrant’s face molded and put on the said cake and to make things even more exciting, you can also add more faces of him but this time in a younger version.

Baking a Cake for the First Time

Simple Cake

Baking your cake for the first time might seem like an intimidating task, especially if you’ve no experience in baking at all. But technology has made it easier for everyone, even novices bake their own cake without seeking for professional help. The first step is to research on what kind of cake you would like to bake. There are thousands of cake recipes online and in library books, you can even scan bookstores. Check out your baking equipment at home and find out how you can be resourceful if you don’t own a device that is necessary for the project. Follow the recipe and tutorial videos and it’s like having a baker teach you one-on-one.

How to Make a Mario Cake

Mario Cake

Are you planning to give a Mario cake to somebody who enjoys playing the Mario bros. games since he was a child? You can make edible Mario characters using fondant and use these as decorative pieces for your cake. Alternatively, if you are using butter cream icing, you can use Mario themed toppers or figurines. There are cake toppers of Mario, Peach, Toad, Luigi, Yoshi Donkey Kong and other Mario characters that you can purchase from your favorite cake supply shop. If these are not available, you can visit sites in the internet where you can buy or order Mario themed cake toppers and figurines.