Amanda of I am Baker
Text and instructions provided by Amanda
Pictures copied with her permission .
A cookie professor on my blog, what an honor.
Amanda makes charming and beautiful cakes and cookies,
they are so unique!
Her work has been featured on Amy Atlas Sweet Design Blog ,Cupcakes take the Cake.
and she is also a monthly correspondent for Twin Cities Live .
I am so happy that she accepted to share this beautiful Halloween cake with us..
Candle Lit Jack-o-Lantern Cake
You will need:
(this is the easy version… )
2 Boxes Devils Food Cake
1 Box White Cake
2 containers white frosting
1 container chocolate frosting
Orange Food coloring
Green Food coloring
Yellow Food coloring
Black Food coloring
INSTRUCTIONS
Make the two boxes of Devils Food cake in 8 or 9 in rounds
That should yield 4 round cakes.
Put in freezer.
You are going to make the white cake into cupcakes.
Separate 1 cup of batter and add 2 drops of yellow food coloring.
The one cup of yellow should yield about 3 or 4 cupcakes.
This is for your center candle, in which you will only need 3 white cupcakes and 1 yellow cupcake.
Put in freezer.
To assemble cake.
Level each layer of the cake so it is flat.
You are going to be cutting out the center of the chocolate cakes. If you have a round cookie cutter that works well. If not, get a glass with a width smaller then the base of your cupcake.
(Keep one of the cutouts for your ‘stem’)
Cut through THREE layers of the chocolate cake. You can place them on top of each other to make sure they line up and then cut… or you can cut each individually then place them on top of each other and trim.
For the fourth chocolate cake, I cut a much smaller circle, as I wanted to squish in the yellow cake. I shaved the yellow cupcake into a rough diamond shape, to resemble a flame.
Cut three white cupcakes so that they are symmetrical… just shaving off the sides with a sharp knife. If your cupcakes have been in the freezer this works MUCH better. You want them to be round… like the wick of a candle.
Place one chocolate layer down, add some chocolate frosting as glue, and continue with the remaining layers until you have three layers stacked.
Now, get your white cupcakes and push them down into the center hole. You will most likely have a little white cupcake sticking above the top layer of chocolate cake…just take your knife and trim it off.
Now take the fourth chocolate layer, with the much smaller whole cut out, place in on top of the assembled cake so far (make sure there is a layer of frosting in there) . ‘Stuff’ in the yellow cupcake. You sorta want the chocolate to ‘fill in’ around the cupcake so you can see the diamond shape of the ‘flame’.
Now throw that bad boy in the freezer and let him chill out.
For at LEAST on hour.
Get your cake out of the freezer, and start trimming away. You want to make a round shape, like a pumpkin, so cut away the bottom edge, the part that is touching the plate. You also want to go around the top and trim away that sharp corner… you will start to see a pumpkin shape forming.
Go ahead and put down a dollop of frosting where you want your stem to be. You can make it as high as you would like, just use frosting in between each layer.
Once you are happy with your shape you can begin frosting it!
Empty two containers of white frosting into a bowl and add orange food coloring. This can be as little as two drops or as much a 12 depending on how orange you want it.
(if you want to add any green detail on the stem or leaves, you can leave a tablespoon or two of frosting out, or you can use the chocolate frosting you have left over)
Once combined, take a knife and start spreading the frosting over the cake.
I do a crumb coat…which means I do one layer of frosting to seal in all the crumbs. I then put into the freezer for an hour.
After the crumb coat, I finish putting on all of the frosting and try to smooth it out a bit. With this cake specifically, you can smooth it out running your flat side of your knife up and down. Since that is kinda how pumpkins are.
Now you can add the brown or green to the stem. You can either try and smooth it out or you can put the frosting in a Ziploc bag, cut off the corner, and just pipe around the stem to cover it. Either way looks good!
Get out some leftover chocolate frosting, add some black food coloring, and outline the jack-o-lantern face.
Fill it in if you want… sometimes the outline looks good too!
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