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November 15, 2012 - Penguin Cake
Click here for short instructions
This will likely be my last blog for awhile, as I'll be tied up with a new little one soon. Nevertheless, in thinking about the upcoming winter holdiay season, here's a cute idea:
To make this cake, you'll need a Cake-Shaping Strip (look here about how to make one), heavy-duty aluminum foil, a sheet pan, prepared cake batter (see the White Cake with Chocolate Cream-Cheese Tunnel recipe below or use about 2 boxes of cake mix), dark frosting (use our Chocolate Buttercream Frosting recipe and dye it black or use about 2 containers of white frosting dyed black), fondant (see our Easy Marshmallow Creme Fondant recipe), our Fortune-Cookie Any-Shape Cookie batter and food dye.
First, make a Cake-Shaping Strip as described here using six sushi-mat segments. Orient a sheet pan vertically, and place two horizontal sheets of slightly overlapping heavy-duty foil on the pan. Shape the strip into a shape of a penguin, ignoring its wings and feet for now. After the strip is shaped, wrap the foil sheet around the strip. Cut the foil or use extra foil pieces where needed to wrap around the strip. Slide extra strips of foil under the legs and tail and wrap them around the cake-shaping strip.
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Now prepare your cake batter. I was trying to think up another black-and-white recipe. I haven't seen anything like this, but it turned out really good.
White Cake with Chocolate Cream-Cheese Tunnel
Ingredients:
2 boxes white chocolate mix, prepared as directed
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
2/3 cup chocolate chips, melted
1 egg
1/3 cup sugar
Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a pan with cooking spray.
2. Stir almond extract into the prepared white cake batter.
3. Spread half of the white cake batter in pan.
4. Mix together the cream cheese, melted chocolate chips, egg and sugar.
5. Drop large spoonfuls of the cream-cheese mixture on the spread cake batter, avoiding a 1/2-inch border from the edge of the pan.
6. Pour the remaining cake batter over the cream-cheese drops and spread the batter out smoothly.
7. Bake for about 50 minutes or until done.
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After baking, carefully remove the wrapped foil and then the strip. If any batter leaked through the strip, cut it away from the cake before trying to remove the strip. While separating the strip from the cake, you can insert a knife between the strip and cake to help with the process (if it doesn't easily peel off by itself).
Here's a part of the cake that will have people scratching their heads regarding how you did it. Time to make the wings and feet. It's not hard at all. Just make our Fortune-Cookie Any-Shape Cookie batter. Then preheat the oven as directed and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Spread the batter on the parchment paper roughly in the shape of the wings and feet. Bake the dough, and let the cookies completely cool. Now use a scissors to cut the cookies into the perfect wings and feet shape. For now, set the cookies aside. We'll be right back to them.
Turning to frosting, this cake requires black frosting, white frosting and white fondant. For the black frosting, I went with our Chocolate Buttercream Frosting recipe and dyed it black. For the white frosting, I used our Cream-Cheese Buttercream Frosting recipe. I left half of it white and dyed half of it orange. For the white fondant, I turned to our reliable Easy Marshmallow Creme Fondant recipe. I left half of it white, dyed about half of it red, and dyed just a little bit orange.
Turning back to those cookies: frost the top and sides of the wings using the black frosting and the top and sides of the feet using the orange frosting. Place them on a cookie sheet or tray lined with parchment paper. Put the cookies in the refrigerator until the frosting is cold. Since I was using a buttercream, I could use a trick that I shared with you before to smooth the frosting. That is, after the frosting was cold, I placed a paper towl over a portion of the frosting, rubbed my hand over the paper towel until it was smooth, and repeated this process for the remaining regions. Then I turned the feet and wings over, frosted the other side, cooled the cookies again and again smoothed out the frosting. Now, again - set the cookies aside as we turn to the cake.
White sections of the cake first. So roll out the white fondant. Apply a medium-thick layer of white frosting on the belly of the penguin, and then place the rolled out fondant on the frosting. Cut away edges of the fondant such that the fondant only covers the belly region.
Next, frost the rest of the cake with the black frosting. Use the smoothing technique described above to smooth out the "feathers" or keep them ruffled if you prefer.
Using some of the remaining white fondant, form two eye whites and place them on the cake. Make the eye centers using the black frosting.
Form a beak with the orange fondant and put that on the cake.
Turning back to the cookies: frost the back portion of the top of the feet with orange frosting, and use this to "glue" the feet to the cake. Similarly, frost the top portion of the back of the wings with black frosting, and use this to "glue" the wings to the cake.
Now roll out the red fondant. Cut out two thin strips and place the strips on the cake to look like a scarf. That should do it! Lots of steps, I know, but nothing is hard, and it is for the holidays after all:
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