Wednesday 1 August 2012

Theatre Cake

And here is something I made for my theatre group. All the words on the cake are... Well... The day before I made the cake, I asked them for the first word they could think of, when thinking about the play... That's what happened...

by Nils (our boatswain)

Just in case you wonder what the '20' is for... It was our 20th play. This is a vanilla cake filled with apricot preserve and vanilla butter cream, covered in butter cream and fondant.


What you need is:

375 g sugar
375 g soft butter
5 large eggs
vanilla syrup
560 g flour
1 sachet baking powder

apricot preserve
375 g soft butter
375 g icing sugar
vanilla syrup

about 500 g fondant
red royal icing
silver sugar pearls
food colour pens

You know the procedure ;) 
First, mix sugar and butter until white and fluffy. Then, add the eggs one by one and mix until well combined. Add vanilla syrup, flour and baking powder and mix well. Then, grease and flour a 26 cm baking tin and fill in the dough. Bake on 175°C for about 45 minutes to an hour. 

When the cake has cooled down, cut it into three layers. Take one layer and cover the top of it with the apricot preserve. Put another layer on top. Now, mix the butter with the sifted icing sugar and vanilla syrup until white and fluffy. It takes some time, but it's worth it. Cover the second layer of your cake with the butter cream and put the last layer on top. Now, cover the whole cake with the remaining butter cream and let it sit in the fridge for about an hour, so that the cream has time to harden a bit.

Now, it is time for a real mess. A mess? Yes, a mess. Heat the fondant in your microwave in very short intervals (5-10 seconds each) until you can knead it. Flour your working surface with icing sugar and roll out the fondant until it is large enough to cover the cake. Cover it, then. Use fondant smoothers, if you have some. If not, use your hands to make the fondant lie smoothly on the cake. 

When the cake is covered paint a curtain onto it with the royal icing. Use remaining fondant to cut out little flowers to decorate the curtain with. Glue some silver sugar pearls on with royal icing and write down what you like with the food colour pens :) 
And when you have to clean up the icing sugar that by now is on everything you have touched meanwhile, you will know why I call it a mess :)