This was my first character cake. The pan is shaped to the design and includes detailed directions how to decorate. I have had this pan for a few months now and just didn’t have the time to try it. A friend’s birthday is coming up and I know she’s a fan of SpongeBob so I decided to give it a try.
First of all, the directions say a 2-layer cake mix. This drives me nuts because all cake mixes don’t produce the same amount of batter and I have yet to find a cake mix that says '2-layer mix' specifically. What if I was making a cake from scratch? Why can’t they just tell me how many cups of batter? So I made up 2 cake mixes and figured I’d use any left over for a few cupcakes. It definitely needed more than the 4-6 cups of batter from one mix. I guesstimated and ended up pretty good, no overflows in the oven and there was just enough hump to trim off/level. Plus I got 8 cupcakes. It was only as I was placing the cake into the oven that I said, “Pineapple! I should have made a pineapple cake!”
I used Cake Release and made sure I coated all the nooks and crannies of the pan very well. I was very happy with the way the cake released and all of the features transferred from the pan to the cake.
After baking and cooling for 10 minutes they instruct you to trim the cake level while it is still in the pan. My only concern about this was the cake drying out but I think it turned out OK. If I left the hump and flipped the cake over to cool it would probably crack.
When the cake was completely cooled, I made the required 6 cups of frosting, prepped all my parchment bags for the frostings and prepped the cake board for the cake to sit on. At 6:30 pm I started mixing the colors into my frosting. 1/4c blue, 3/4c yellow, 1/2c brown, etc. OK, let’s start decorating…cover the sides with white (very difficult to do smoothly on a not so flat surface), fill in the sponge holes with green, outline the head with green, outline the body with black. I will admit at this point I’m thinking…this isn’t looking very good. OK, fill in the head with yellow stars. This seems to take forever! If I am ever going to do a character cake again I need a tip with three stars on it instead of one! But it is finally coming together and I push through the pain. The smaller areas seem to go much quicker and the details really finish it off. Definitely turned out better than I thought it would about 2 1/2 hours earlier!
Happy Birthday Erika!
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It is so awesome!! And super yummy. It kept in the garage perfectly (got home too late to enjoy last night!) Harry is on his second helping, I don't think it will last long.
ReplyDeleteThanks again, I feel quite privlidged to have a Lisa cake
Want a tip to get rid of the hump without cutting it off? When the cake comes out of the oven, make sure it's done (of course), then place a clean dish towel over the cake and press the domed part down with your hands. Press lightly all over the cake until it's level. Let it set in the pan for a few minutes, then turn onto a paper towel lined cooling rack.
ReplyDeleteThat's an excellent tip! I have since tried that technique and I do press the hump down now on all my cakes. No more cake scraps for me :(
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