Butterfly-Shaped Cake
Ingredients:
Cake-Shaping Strip (from 9 sushi-mat segments)
Heavy-duty aluminum foil
Sheet pan
Prepared cake batter (see the Pear and Raspberry Cake batter or prepare batter using about 2 boxes of cake mix)
Frosting (about 2 (16-ounce) containers of white frosting, or about 1 (16-ounce) container of white frosting and 1 (16-ounce) container of chocolate frosting)
Food dye
Instructions:
1. Line a sheet pan with two sheets of slightly overlapping sheets of foil.Shape the Cake-Shaping Strip into a shape of a butterfly. Exaggerate the spatial features, as they'll seem smaller after you unwrap and ice the cake. Wrap the bottom foil layers around the strip. Cut the foil and add extra bottom foil strips as needed to wrap around the strip. Press small balls of loosely packed foil into outer corners or edges if you think that the foil didn't wrap around the portion well enough to prevent cake-batter leakage.
2. Prepare your cake batter. Spray the strip and foil with cooking spray. Pour the cake batter into the prepared "pan" and bake until done. Let the cake cool.
3. Cut away any cake batter that leaked through the strip. Carefully remove the Cake-Shaping Strip. Insert the flat edge of a table knife between the strip and the cake if this helps.
4. Fill a piping bag with 1/2 container white frosting and dye the rest a desired color. Roughly frost what is shown as the purple portion of the butterfly below using the dyed frosting.
5. Add a few drops of water to the chocolate frosting to make it easier to pipe and spread. Fill a second piping bag with 1/2 container chocolate frosting and reserve the rest. Pipe on the chocolate lines and borders around the colored segment.
6. Spread the reserved chocolate frosting along the sides of the cake and the top chocolate portions. Do not attempt to completely smooth the chocolate frosting now. Rather, let it completely dry. Then put one drop of water on a table knife and smooth a section of the frosting, and repeat as needed.
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