Meringue, icing, cake batter, you name it and Colm will beat the crap out of it for you without batting an eyelid. Interesting to note that we went for this make and model purely for the wattage. KitchenAids are B-E-A-utiful peices of equipment, but only clock up 300W, whereas Colm uses an impressive 1000W -to the point where I almost feel he is wasted on baking, we should be mixing cement in this bad boy!
I'm not just gloating about how awesome our kitchen utensils are, there is a point to this, and it is shown below...
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| if i could marry a cake, it would be this one. |
Not only a perfectly spherical cake, but a perfectly spherical stuffed full o' sweeties! It's a freaking Piñata! Two cakes hollowed out, filled with goodies, sandwiched together, and iced is so simple I can't believe we've not seen more of it.
The inspiration for this little gem came from Pinterest, as it so often does these days. When the recipe that came with the original called for two boxes of cake mix, we had to figure out our own because cake in a box is not how we do shit here at 45 Baker Street.
The nature of this project called for a cake that was sturdy enough to hold it together under the weight of the frosting after having its insides scooped out. We went for a tried and tested favourite, the high ratio recipe (also called the fine crumb recipe).
We discovered this recipe nestled in the pages of Edd Kimber's Say It With Cake, just casually mentioned in a Battenberg recipe (more on this to come) as though it didn't have the power to revolutionise how we made cake, as though this wasn't a GAME CHANGING METHOD. It was.
This is not a reflection on my skills as a synonym finder, but there are no words to accurately describe the texture of this cake. It's dense without being heavy, it's sturdy without being solid, and yet it is still light, and airy without being spongy. It cuts beautifully so it’s a geeky dreamboat when it comes to shaped cakes that need to be carved or, in our instance, cakes that need to have their insides scooped out and replaced with sweeties.
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| cake bowl! |
Ingredients:
Cake:
185g butter (unsalted, SOFTENED)
235g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (or if you want to fancy like we were you can use a pod)
275g caster sugar
Frosting:
226g full fat cream cheese
56g butter (unsalted, softened)
170g white chocolate
220g icing sugar (plus extra to taste)
Method:
1. For the shape of this wonderful piñata, we used two 2 litre Pyrex bowls. Grease them liberally with tons o'butter, and pre heat your oven to 180C/160C(fan)/Gas mark 4)
2. So, we start with the weird bit. ROOM TEMPERATURE butter, flour, baking powder in your mixer or in your bowl. Yes you did read that correctly, butter and dry ingredients. Beat the crap out of it and be aware this will take 10+ minutes with a hand mixer (obviously Colm makes light work of it). When you think it's all going tits up, its not! It will look like breadcrumbs, then it will look like pastry, and if you have retained your sanity by the end of it, it will look like cake mix. Congratulations. It should pale, fluffy, and look like a creamed mixture.
NOTE: If you can't be arsed or if you've forgotten to take your butter out the fridge it will take a bit longer and will be tougher on your mixer, so your choice.
3. Eggs, sugar, and vanilla, less weird but still a bit odd. Similar to brownies whisk together until ribboned, and this can be done over hot water if you are Colm-less.
4.Usually we would advise you that Air is an egg's best friend and to not move the eggs around too much. We are going to contradict ourselves and tell you to pour the egg and sugar mixture over the flour and butter, because it is easier to pour the eggs than to try and scoop out the buttery floury mixture. Go for a slow folding technique and take your time with it; make sure it is all well incorporated. When you are done you should have the most amazing cake mixture you have ever seen. It will be smooth beyond anything you have imagined, all your ingredients will be thoroughly combined without a hint of curdling. Welcome to the world of the Fine Crumb. You will never go back.
5. Equally distribute your mixture between the two pyrex bowls. Weigh them for accuracy if that's how you roll.
6. Whack them in the oven. Be aware there is a lot of mixture and they could take 30-40 minutes. If your oven, like ours, is a dick, and you find that the tops are darkening but the middle is raw just cover them in tinfoil and liberally curse your oven. Don't worry if you find the tops are cracking or rising more in the middle. This is just due to the amount of mixture and the shape of the bowl, and you'll be cutting this bit off anyway.
7. They are done as soon as a skewer comes out clean. Let them cool completely before trying to get them out. And they might need a wee bit of help from a kind hearted metal offset spatula.
8. Once you've coaxed them out of their bowls,trim the tops of the cakes, taking off any uneven parts, and cut round the edges if you have any over cooked bits.
9. To get the insides out of the cake nice and evenly, cut a circle out of the top with the knife at a 45° angle, like if you were making butterfly cakes. Take the circle off and put it on top of the other cake, and use it as a guide. Cut around this circle, again with the knife at a 45°. Take both cake discs out of the way, but don't throw them away! We have a use for those crusts! Next you want to take your knife and score lines vertically and then horizontally, as if your were cutting a mango. This is so that the cake doesn't tear when you start scooping out the innards. Safety first! No rush with this, you don't want it to get too thin and fall apart at this stage, that would be demoralising. Tip: If, like us, you struggle with depth perception, holding the cake up to the light and looking into the crater will help you see when you have are at the right thickness. We also left an edge about 1.5 inch thick so that there was enough cake left to hold it all together.
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| with no mess at all... |
10. Fill one half with anything that you want to put in there. We went for gummy sweets and a helping of liquorice. A word of warning however, lollypops are not a good idea. They can interfere during the cutting of the cake and make it hard for everyone.
11. Now you need to coat that bad boy in something equally delicious. WE bloody love a good cream cheese frosting, not too sweet, not too sickly, so you can eat LOADS of it. Here's your method. Cream butter and cream cheese until creamy. Cream. Add melted and slightly cooled chocolate, mix well. Add your sugar gradually, beating until light. Don't feel like you have to addexactly what the recipe says, we used slightly more than the recipe states because we like it sweet, but if you find that too sweet then by all means hold back!
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| creamy creamed cream cheese |
Refrigerate.
13. Next up is the final layer of frosting, and in this case, more is more. Be liberal because you don't want it to look patchy. Make sure you can't see the cake through the icing, but don't break your back trying to make it look perfect. This is a fun cake, and it is spherical for crying out loud, you'll lose your mind trying to make it perfect.It's really what's hidden inside the cake that's important. Our icing wasn't perfect at all and it kind of added to the effect. We topped ours off with neon sugar sprinkles and it looked cracking.
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| this cake is the baking equivalent of jazz hands |
Don't throw away the middle of the cakes, and don't worry if you have icing left over. We used ours to make matching cake pops and will tell you how very soon.
You could also fill this cake fill with berries instead of sweets, so if you want a slightly less sugar-coma inducing version, try it that way instead.
Any way that you decide to fill this guy it's a fun cake for any occasion and really simple to master. You'll have Piñata cakes coming out of your ears!
