Where the Wild Cakes Are . . .

 

"The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another his mother called him 'WILD THING!' and Max said 'I'LL EAT YOU UP!' " -- Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

A few weeks ago, my good friend Holly asked if I'd be interested in making a special cake for her young nephew's birthday party. She sent me a link to a photo that depicted a fun rendition, in cake form, of one of the characters from Where the Wild Things Are. I took one look and knew I couldn't pass it up. That photo provided the direct inspiration for the cake that I ended up making last week. I hope the folks at Coco Cake, a boutique-cupcake bakery in Vancouver, Canada, agree that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, because I drew very heavily from their adorable design (click on that link to see their cake!).

Their cake, though, was fondant covered and wrapped with a fabric ribbon. Because we didn't want to go with fondant for this little boy's birthday, my cake was filled and coated with buttercream, and fondant accents were used only for the eyes, nose, teeth, and horns. To make this cake, I used a devil's food recipe that can be found here, in a post that I did last September; the buttercream icing recipe that I used can also be found within that same post.

This is an awfully simple design when you get right down to it. Anyone with the time and inclination could make this. So, let the wild baker within you out -- make your own Wild Thing cake, and let the wild rumpus start!

Here's the rundown on the supplies that I used and details on how I assembled this wild thing of a birthday cake:

Three 9" cake layers, cooled
About 1 and 1/2 cups of white or off-white buttercream icing
About 5 cups of chocolate icing
About 3/4 cup of grated milk chocolate and dark chocolate, combined
A small amount of white fondant (teeth and horns)
A small amount of pinkish/flesh-toned fondant (nose)
A very small amount of bright yellow fondant (eyes)
A very tiny amount of black fondant (pupils of eyes)

Helpful to have:
One 9" cakeboard
Cake decorating turntable
Metal offset spatula(s)

You'll definitely need:
One pastry bag (10" or 12" size is good)
One decorating tip -- number 133 or 233 (these are often referred to as "fur" or "grass" tips)
4 sharply-pointed standard length toothpicks (to help anchor the horns)
Black or dark gray food coloring (preferably paste or gel type; not the watery type)

Assembly:
With one layer of the cake placed on the 9" cakeboard (note: "glue" the layer onto the board with about a tablespoon of smeared frosting on the board itself), and centered on your turntable, spread about 1 cup of the chocolate icing evenly to the edge of the layer; do the same with the second cake layer, spreading the icing evenly to the edge. Over the third layer, spread half of the white icing smoothly. Now, ice the sides of the cake all in chocolate, smoothing as you go; while the frosting is still soft, lift the cake on its board, and holding it on your palm over a sheet pan, pour and pat the grated chocolate onto the sides until the cake is coated all around. This grated chocolate gives the cake a nice furry look--very wild! Try hard to avoid getting grated chocolate on the top of the cake.

Refrigerate the cake, uncovered, for about 20 minutes or until the frosting on the top feels cold and firm. Once it's firm, spread another layer of white icing over the existing layer on the top of the cake. Smooth it completely with an offset spatula; if you're having trouble getting a really smooth surface, it helps to dip your spatula in very hot water for several seconds, immediately wipe it off with a dish towel, and then use it right away to smooth out the buttercream (they call this the "hot knife method"-- how clever!). Refrigerate the cake again, uncovered, while you prepare your fondant decorations.

When working with fondant, always remember that it begins to dry out extremely quickly, so don't leave it exposed to the air. Lightly cover your fondant pieces that are in progress with a slightly damp piece of paper towel while you're working, and only remove as much fondant from the container as you'll need for each decorative piece as you shape each one. (Keep your containers tightly closed and/or in zip-loc bags. You can buy small containers/packages of fondant at craft stores. They can be purchased already colored, or you can buy white fondant and color it yourself with paste food coloring; if you've never used fondant before at all, though,  practice with it before you actually try it out on an important cake. It's kind of a weird medium and it takes getting used to. In fact, if you're a total newbie, I'd advise reading up on basic fondant techniques just to help avoid disaster.)

Working the pink/flesh-tone fondant with your hands until it's relatively soft, shape it into a rounded cone/pyramid shape, and work that gradually into the shape of the creature's nose. Don't forget that it needs one flat side to lay on the cake, and two indentations that look like nostrils. Keep in mind, as you mold the nose, the desired size in relation to the top of the cake.

To make the eyes, roll out the softened yellow fondant with a fondant rolling pin (a waxy, extremely smooth pin), and cut out two perfectly round eyes. Don't make them too thin, or they'll be hard to cleanly lift and handle. Roll out and cut two very thin circles for the pupils, and then trim them to fit into the eyes. Attach the black pupils to the eyes by dabbing on a tiny bit of water, with your finger or a brush, to act as glue; water is all that's needed to cement two small pieces of fondant together.

For the teeth, roll out a bit of the softened white fondant and. using a sharp knife or pastry wheel, cut out about 10 triangular teeth. (That wild creature really has 14 teeth in the storybook, but I could realistically only fit 10 of my fondant teeth on the cake.)

Take a larger chunk of the white fondant and roll it into a solid cone shape, then curve it slightly to make it look like the creature's horn; make 2 of these. At the base of each horn slice off a bit of the fondant on an angle with a thin sharp knife, to help create a small flat surface that will allow the horns to rest on, and better adhere to, the frosting on the cake. Let the horns sit for a while and firm up before attempting to affix them to the cake. Don't cover them.

Remove the cake from the fridge. Handling each fondant item carefully, arrange the eyes, nose, and teeth on the top of the cake, keeping in mind as you place them that frosting "fur" will eventually be piped all around the edge of the face.


When the horns seem firm enough, position them near the top edge of the cake above the outer edges of the eyes. Anchor each one, at its base, into the cake by pushing the two toothpicks through the horn and into the cake. (Critical: Be sure to inform the person who will be cutting the cake that the toothpicks are in there! No one wants a birthday child biting into a toothpick!) If there's any fear that the horns aren't ready to support themselves, place something beneath them to help hold them up while you continue decorating the cake. (As shown, I needed to use little boxes that I topped with folded napkins. That worked well, and once the whole cake was done being decorated and could go right into the fridge, I removed the supports and all was well.)

Prepare your pastry bag, using the fur/grass tip in a coupler (the coupler is the two-piece device that holds the tip securely inside and outside of the pastry bag). Using a small spatula or the back of a spoon, "stripe" the inside surface of the bag here and there with a smearing of the black/gray food coloring. Now fill the bag about 2/3 of the way full with soft chocolate frosting; it must be soft enough to pipe easily but not at all warm; if it's too soft the fur will just flop over and make a mess as you pipe it onto the cake.

Starting with the toothpick-anchored horns, pipe fur all around them; this will anchor them further.

Then, pipe the long bangs that extend to the top of the nose and eyes. From there, just keep piping fur all around, refilling your bag with more frosting as needed. Make the piping a little heavier near the creature's chin; in the book, he has a bit of a goatee if you look closely. Once you're all done piping, store the cake in a plastic cake carrier, or in a cake box, in the fridge.

 There now, wasn't that wild? 

 
(If you'd like to comment on this post, or to read existing comments, please click on the purple COMMENTS below!)

Retro Desserts, Part IV: Just Give the Man What He Wants -- Devil's Food Cake!

We celebrated my husband's birthday last weekend and, as you can plainly see, I made a very tall buttercream-frosted cake for the occasion. I wanted to make it just as he'd requested--a devil's food cake that would satisfy his childhood memories of what a birthday cake is supposed to be. Three layers high, with the classic, simple, American-style buttercream . . . rich, sweet, and completely chocolatey. No extraneous frills allowed. No foil-covered cake board or lacy doily. No fancy frosting decorations all over the place. Not even any lettering, and thus no "Happy Birthday Andy!!" written in icing on the top. I had to kind of twist his birthday-boy arm, in fact, for clearance to put even a few hastily piped dots around the messy bottom edge; they were legitimately needed to cover up the inevitable smudges.

Because of the clear requirement for a certain level of simplicity, I figured I should also forego the fussy niceties that frequently accompany the assembly of a layer cake like this. Niceties like what, you ask? Well, like piping on an icing "dam" around the outer edge of each layer before spreading the rest of the icing on each one; this is a very useful tactic, even if the whole cake is being frosted inside and out with a single type of icing, and I usually utilize it. But not for this cake, no sir. And, I opted out of the nicety of putting a "crumb coat" (a thin, initial icing layer intended primarily to seal in crumbs) on the cake before laying on the final icing layer. I never go without the crumb coat. Never. But this time I forced myself to just not do it.

"It's all one big frosting layer, baby, and you'd better like it!" That's what I was thinking as I plopped on glob after glob of buttercream icing, helter skelter, as if I had a plane to catch. My youngest son, Nathan, helped with the frosting too (perhaps he needed to catch the same plane?). Those are his hands in the photo below, holding that little offset spatula. (He's still a bit reticent at the prospect of appearing on camera. I guess his hands aren't shy, though, luckily.)

Once the cake was safely sealed within its hefty buttercream carapace, I rebelled just a smidgen by putting it on a cake pedestal with a ruffly edge. Looking at the cake from a few feet back, Nathan remarked that it resembled a bizarre top-hat of sorts. True, I responded, but a really good smelling top-hat.

As far as the recipe goes, I was pleased to finally have an opportunity to try out a book I've been reading lately called Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes, by Alisa Huntsman and Peter Wynne. This is the first cookbook I've ever encountered that focuses exclusively on cakes that are three layers. On the surface it may seem like an overly specific concept for a cookbook, and it is unique in the vast field of baking books that I've encountered. But I must say it's convenient, if not downright comforting, to have the exact proportions for a cake of that size already figured out for you. And, it's nice to know that the cake you're constructing was designed from the get-go to be sturdy enough to hold up without problems. Afterall, the last person you want to have to call in the middle of a baking crisis is a structural engineer. (Sadly, unlike our dear friends the plumbers and furnace repair guys, they're not on call to the general public 24 hours a day.)

Because I'd never used this recipe before, I changed nothing at all in terms of the ingredients, nor did I mess with the process for putting it together. Yeah, I know, it's shocking. ( "How the heck did she restrain herself?" you may be wondering . . . "maybe she had to take a tranquilizer first . . . ?") But seriously folks, I'm glad I didn't fiddle with it, since the finished cake's texture and depth of flavor were all I could have hoped for and more. Truly an exceptional devil's food that's highly likely to end up on my permanent list of reliable favorites. And not only that, there must be at least a dozen more recipes in this book that I already know I'd like to try. They all sound so interesting and look so good--lots of luscious photos, too, to back up the author's claims. It's worth shelling out a few bucks for this book, bakers. (And you know I don't make a purchase recommendation lightly.)

The recipe for the chocolate buttercream is, as I noted earlier, very American and traditional. That said, it's not one that I'd describe as stupefyingly sweet and it has no trace of the grittiness that sometimes afflicts this type of frosting. It's a soft, deeply chocolatey, easily spreadable buttercream, and the recipe is rock-solid reliable. It's from an older book that I think I've mentioned before, quaintly titled The Magical Art of Cake Decorating. I've made this icing several times in the past, and never had the slightest problem with it.

Alrighty then . . . now that I've talked your ear off . . .

Devil's Food Cake
(from the book Sky High, by Alicia Huntsman & Peter Wynne; I've reworded the instructions only very slightly, with no significant changes from the original)

For a printable version of this recipe, click here!

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter the bottoms and sides of three 8"round cake pans. Line the bottoms of each pan with a parchment paper or wax paper circle, then butter the paper.

1 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder (Do not use Dutch processed cocoa. Apparently, it's the action of the regular cocoa powder with the baking soda that gives the cake its trademark reddish-brown tint!)
1 and 1/4 cups hot water
3 cups light brown sugar, packed
2 and 2/3 cups cake flour
1 and 1/2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 eggs (I used large)
1 and 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup cold water

Place the cocoa powder in a medium bowl. Pour in the hot water and whisk until smooth. Set aside to let the mixture cool to room temperature.

In the large bowl of your mixer, using the paddle attachment, combine the brown sugar, flour, baking soda, and salt on low speed. Add in the butter and the dissolved cocoa, beating briefly to blend. Raise speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.

In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, cold water, and vanilla until blended. Add this liquid to the batter in three additions, scraping down the sides of the bowl well and mixing only to incorporate between additions. Divide the batter equally among the three prepared cake pans.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean. Cool the cakes in their pans, on racks, for 15 minutes. Invert the cakes from the pans onto the racks, and carefully remove the paper circles. Let the cakes finish cooling completely before frosting or storing.

Classic Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

(from the book The Magical Art of Cake Decorating, by Carole Collier)

Readers, please note: You will probably want to double this recipe, in order to have enough to generously frost a three-layer cake. The proportions listed here, though, are adequate for a two-layer cake. And if you have extra leftover icing, you can always refrigerate or freeze it. It keeps very well in the freezer, for months, in my experience.

Prepare classic vanilla buttercream first, before adding in chocolate components, as follows:

3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup white vegetable shortening
1/2 cup milk (I used 2 percent)
1/4 tsp. salt
1 and 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 pounds confectioner's sugar, sifted (If you use Domino brand "10x" and you don't plan to use the frosting in a piping bag, you can probably easily get away with no sifting! Yay! Seems like every baker I know hates sifting powdered sugar.)

Place the butter, shortening, milk, salt, and vanilla, along with one pound of the sugar, in a large mixer bowl. Beat at low speed until combined, then gradually add in the other pound of sugar. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Continue beating, now on high speed, for 8 to 10 minutes, until the frosting is very light and fluffy.

To make it into chocolate buttercream:

For each pound of confectioner's sugar you used in preparing the plain buttercream, allow 2/3 cup of sifted, unsweetened cocoa (I used a mixture of natural cocoa and Dutch process for depth of color and richness of flavor, but either works fine; be sure to sift whatever cocoa you use), 3 Tbsp. softened unsalted butter, and 1/8 tsp. salt. Add these ingredients right into the plain buttercream and beat until thoroughly distributed. To achieve the consistency you prefer, you can mix in milk, just one teaspoon at a time.

* * * * * *
Enjoy!

(If you'd like to comment on this post or read any existing comments, just click on the purple COMMENTS below!)