Jack skellington birthday cake
HAPPY BELATED HALLOWEEN!!
So this was my first cake "order". I got to make a Halloween Birthday Cake! I was so excited since being a Christmas Baby kind of prevents me from having a Halloween party and therefore not having an excuse to make a Halloween Birthday cake. So when I found out that I had free rein over the design of this cake I went all out, creating this extremely time consuming cake. The cake was a checkerboard white chocolate ganache and raspberry cream cake, covered with tie dye marzipan and piping gel blood.
So this was my first cake "order". I got to make a Halloween Birthday Cake! I was so excited since being a Christmas Baby kind of prevents me from having a Halloween party and therefore not having an excuse to make a Halloween Birthday cake. So when I found out that I had free rein over the design of this cake I went all out, creating this extremely time consuming cake. The cake was a checkerboard white chocolate ganache and raspberry cream cake, covered with tie dye marzipan and piping gel blood.
This has got to be the best cake I have ever made as it was not only good in looks but also delicious. This cake was lactose free and the mini cake was also egg free. This cake took a lot of prep work since making the brains and the eyes where pretty time consuming, but the result was amazing. (Dear CAS Supervisor: I want to apologize in advance for not having photos of every stage in the making of this cake but considering the fact that I had so much to do and that I was very tired when I did the major things on this cake I think it is quite understandible.) Now onto how I made the eyes!
First make a ball of marzipan for the eyeball, then take a small piece of green marzipan and form a small ball, flatten it out to create an iris and do the same with an even smaller piece of black marzipan to create the pupil and press them together. Then take a teeny tiny piece of uncoloured marzipan and press it on the side of the eye as seen above to create the illusion of light reflecting on the eyeball. Then stick this on to the ball of marzipan that you previously made and draw veins with an edible food pen. This can also be achieved by dipping a toothpick in red food colouring and drawing/dotting it in the shape of veins. This is a technique I have used before and it works it just takes more time. The brains where a bit more complicated and I was too lazy to take pictures of the different stages but basically just roll out small strands of pink marzipan and layer it on a ball of marzipan until you have covered the entire ball then take a toothpick and press the middle of the ball to make the corpus callosum that connects the two cerebral hemispheres of the brain. I fell a bit like Professor Frankenstein making these brains and eyes. I'm an evil scientist MUAHAHAHAHA.
I then made the raspberry cream. Basically all you need to do is cook raspberries with a little bit of sugar until it has reached a jam like consistency and then whip up some cream and fold the sauce into it. I then put it into the fridge ( or outside in this case since it was soo cold outside) and let it set.
Next its time to make the WHITE CHOCOLATE GANACHE. If you want to know the recipe click HERE.
When you take it out of the fridge it will be a bit liquidy all you need to do is whip it up like normal whipping cream and it will turn into a firm mousse like consistency.
When you take it out of the fridge it will be a bit liquidy all you need to do is whip it up like normal whipping cream and it will turn into a firm mousse like consistency.
To make the checkerboard pattern you will need two bases. One chocolate and one vanilla. Slice the cakes into two parts. Then cut a piece of paper in the same size as the cake tin and cut 2 cm off around the entire paper put this on the cake and secure with toothpicks. Then cut around the paper. Use the same paper for cutting the chocolate base. Then take the paper and cut off an additional 2 cm and repeat the previous step. Do this until you only have a small piece of cake left. Then make a slice on the side of the cake to make it easier to remove the cake pieces when layering the cakes. Next layer the different pieces of cake alternating between vanilla and chocolate.
When one layer is finished add the white chocolate ganache and raspberry cream then start the layering process again alternating between the different cake flavours. When you are done cover the cake in the rest of the raspberry cream and crumb coat it.
( Optional: This is how I made the mini cake for the girl who couldn't eat egg I used two chocolate muffins that i cut the top off and stacked with lactose free whipped cream and raspberry cream. I got the recipe from HERE. I then covered the cake with a small piece of tie dye marzipan.)
I then made the skull for the cake topper. It was supposed to resemble Jack Skellington but it didn't really so I am just going to say that I was inspired by Jack Skellington's head. The skull was made from Rice Krispie treats I found the recipe HERE I think I am not really sure but I made more than the recipe suggested. In fact i made enough to make this pumpkin. I covered the pumpkin and the skull in marzipan and wannabe Jack Skellington's eyes nose and mouth was made from black Marzipan. If you are colouring your own marzipan I strongly recommend that you use GEL COLOURS! As they are highly pigmented and don't ruin the consistency of your dough/ marzipan/ fondant. I also recommend first dying your marzipan to a darker colour and then colouring it with the black food dye. This will prevent you from finishing the entire bottle in one go!
Now for the fun part! Covering the cake with BLOOOD and brains and eyes. THIS REALLY MADE ME FEEL LIKE AN EVIL SCIENTIST! MUHAHAHAHAHA. The piping gel was made following this recipe.
I used a little less amount of lemon juice since I didn't want my gel to be too sour. But keep in mind that if you are using less amount of lemon juice you have to use it immediately. As it will crystalize if kept for a long time.
I used a little less amount of lemon juice since I didn't want my gel to be too sour. But keep in mind that if you are using less amount of lemon juice you have to use it immediately. As it will crystalize if kept for a long time.
Here you can see all of the layers and how beautiful the checkerboard pattern actually becomes. :3 Looking at these photos makes me so tempted to just make another one just for myself.
And since it was made during breast cancer awareness month the cake had Pink brains.
Enjoy!
/Alysha
Total amount of CAS hours spent
10 h on Cake
2 h on Photos and Editing
And since it was made during breast cancer awareness month the cake had Pink brains.
Enjoy!
/Alysha
Total amount of CAS hours spent
10 h on Cake
2 h on Photos and Editing