delusions of grandeur part 5: robot cake

We must have watched that Betty Crocker/Howdini robot cake tutorial a hundred times. You know the one; the tutorial that comes up as the top eight hits when you search for robot cake tutorial videos? This one right here. Someone's marketing intern spends a lot of time getting that thing posted EVERYWHERE.

And I was going to make it. I had decided not to go overboard on the cake this year, as last year's Zelda cake had me up till three in the morning. I'm too tired for that. So I was going to make the quick robot cake. The easy robot cake. The fast robot cake.

And then, my almost-three-year-old uttered the words that spelled my certain doom: "I want the robot cake to stand up."

It was innocent, really. But birthday wishes are nearly impossible to deny. I mean, he only has so many years he'll be willing to let me make silly things for him. I'll blink my eyes one day and he'll have sprouted chin whiskers and sarcasm, and my days of making robot cakes are over.

Or at least that's how I justify this year's delusion of grandeur. Cake Boss makes it all look so do-able. I blame Cake Boss.

I hemmed and hawed on whether or not to build this, and in the end, to draw the Mister into the fray with me, I asked him to be the Wielder of the Drill. I found this tutorial on making a cake stand, then simplified it by using pre-cut wooden plaques and dowels from the craft store, plus some super-strength hot glue.

To make it, pick up an 8-inch round plaque  and two 5x7-inch rectangular plaques. Drill holes to fit the 3/4-inch dowel, then glue in place with hot glue. Use a level while the glue sets, and offset the feet to offer a wider base in more directions for stability. Voila!

The video there calls for using donuts to cover the leg dowels. I tried using donuts. Here's some proof, along with the five-layer vanilla buttermilk M&M cake (we call it Pancake Cake) getting a crumb coat of maple sugar frosting.

But I didn't like the way it looked. Especially after a day in the fridge where, even wrapped, the leg donuts started to dry up and show off their seams. Yuck. I needed a plan B, and luckily, I had one in the form of a half a tray of leftover Rice Krispies treats I'd made for the head. In future photos, that's what you'll see (covered entirely in marshmallow fondant) in place of the donut legs.

It went back in the fridge after the crumb coat. Then I started rolling out the fondant . . . and then rolling it out again . . . and then rolling it out again. Four times in all, by the time I'd smoothed the fondant onto the cake without it ripping outright.

And I don't have a lot of photos of the cake in process from this point forward because of the sugar and the sticky all over my hands . . . so let's look at at some more photos of half-eaten cake while I tell you a little bit about it.

First off, the recipes. 

I was looking for something nice and sturdy for the robot cake, since it was going to be several layers high. Regular box mix isn't dense enough (and doesn't taste as good as the recipe I eventually chose . . . trust me. And the family. And the guests at the party. And the Mister's co-workers.) so I went to my stand-by cookbook for tall cakes: Sky High by Alisa Huntsman, Peter Wynne, and Tina Rupp. 

I chose the Vanilla Buttermilk Cake recipe. I wanted something kinda plain because I planned to add M&Ms to the batter. It tastes like the very best pancakes you've ever eaten, but more cake-y. I'm going to link you here to a VERY similar recipe at Sweetapolita, but I still recommend picking up a copy of this book. I've used at least five recipes from it, and they've all been really, really satisfying. You know what I mean. Sometimes desserts look or sound better than they taste. The recipes I've used from this book live up to your expectations.

I made two full recipes for a total of six layers (but only used five for the final cake). Instead of using the chocolate icing recipe included with this cake recipe in the book, I made maple cream cheese icing. Well, semi-made. 

I mixed four tubs of store-bought cream cheese icing with food coloring and maple flavoring (to taste; I think it was two teaspoons) in my Kitchen-Aid. I recommend it. The combination was pretty darn good.

The cake doesn't develop much of a dome as it bakes, so I didn't have to do any trimming, and the amount of frosting I mixed up was just about the right amount for sticking the cake securely to the robot-legs cake stand, frosting between each layer, and crumb coating the entire stack.  

The cupcakes were simpler.  Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cakes, made with a double-chocolate cake mix doctored with extra eggs and buttermilk as recommended in Hello, Cupcake. I added peanut butter chips in, too. A lot of them. Bwa-ha-ha! Birthdays rule! (Until the diabetes sets in.)

Peanut butter cream cheese icing, of course, like last year, because it's so darn good. Half a cup of peanut butter to one tub of cream cheese icing. 

Because I was busting these out while my kiddo and the Mister were out on the town, I didn't have anyone around to snap photos while my hands were covered in stuff you shouldn't get on a camera. And at the party I was flying around and didn't get a chance to snap as many photos as I would have liked, so the only images I have of the finished cupcakes are in shots like these, where you can almost make them out in the crepe streamers.

Rar. The green peanut butter icing had blue and green sugar crystals dusted on the rims. Some of the cupcakes spelled out my kiddo's name in silver fondant letters; others had individual fondant robot parts painted with food coloring and dusted with pearl dust, and were arranged to form whole robots. (Surely someone has a photo. I'll update this if one pops up.)

Speaking of fondant, I've worked with marshmallow fondant before, and I still can't get it right. There's some technique I'm missing, wherein the stuff doesn't rip and tear and pull apart when you're trying to drape it over a simple round cake. 

So I did it four times. The second time, I was this close, and then the weight of the fondant itself pulled a tear right along the top edge. The third time, it stuck to the table. Arrgh.

I finally got it on there, but as I'd worked it unto death, there are the tiniest micro-fractures in it. Of course, because I'd spent so much time rolling everything out, by the time I finally had it good to go, the crumb coat wasn't sticky any more. I brushed a little corn syrup on the sides of the cake to help the fondant stick. It worked like a charm.

In the comments section of the marshmallow fondant recipe I used, a few people imply that this recipe isn't awesome for making decorations, but that wasn't my experience. It set up fine, just like other recipes I've used. The flat decorations stuck easily using a paintbrush + lemon juice/water to glue them in place, and the round balls on top of his antennae firmed up very well. I had just as easy a time cutting the rolled fondant with a knife as I did with cookie cutters or the pizza cutter. Other than the draping, it was very easy to work with.

In some places, like the eyes, I had several layers of fondant decorations stuck on top of one another. They stayed in place perfectly. 

The head is made of the standard Treats recipe on the back of the Rice Krispies box, molded in a small, buttered Pyrex bowl. When it had set up in the refrigerator, I slipped it out, iced it (with the leftover peanut butter icing, as I'd used up all of the maple) and covered it in leftover fondant . . . which this time did NOT rip apart. 

The rivets are made using the same drinking straw punch-out method I used on last year's Zelda cake, pressed on using lemon juice/water glue. There are just fewer of them, thank heavens.

I'd pressed the leftover Rice Krispies treats into a cake pan and didn't really have a plan in mind for them until the donut plan went to pieces (literally). I've never used them in an application like this before, and so it was a really happy discovery how well they worked to cover the legs.

I just cut rectangles to fit, and the treats molded easily in my hands to fit around the dowels. My only caveat is that the marshmallow fondant can look a little lumpy over the treats. I think this can be alleviated by adding an extra layer of icing before applying the fondant; lesson learned for next time.

Okay, this is getting legendarily wordy, so let me sum it up with a couple detail photos from the postmortem.

Oh man! I can't believe I finished that whole post! A doozy for sure. Thanks for sticking with it. I learn so much every time I make one of these cakes, and I hope I've anticipated some of the questions other novices might have.

If you have any other questions, ask 'em in the comments and I'll do my best to answer. Otherwise, you can make these photos a bit larger by clicking on them, and get a bit more detail that way! And a big thank you to my sister-in-law M and the Mister for thinking to capture a few photos to add to my few. You guys rock!

chocolate stout birthday cake

This year, unlike in past years, the mister requested a specific cake flavor, instead of a cake theme (like the Fallout cake here, the Zelda cake here,  and the Skyrim cake here). This year, he wanted a chocolate stout cake, like the one an old friend of ours made for his own birthday a couple of years back.

Now, I'm not as good a baker as our friend, but I can fudge it. (Ha!) I used Jamie's recipe from My Baking Addiction, with a few alterations.

First: I halved the recipe to make a 6-inch, 3-layer cake instead of an 8-inch 3-layer cake. All that high school math served me well (thanks, Mr. Tutland!) as I was calculating to see if a half-recipe would be enough batter; it was close enough for my purposes, so I went ahead with it. I did this because chocolate stout cake is very rich (the "icing" is just chocolate and cream, for heaven's sake) and we were only needing enough for five people . . . and still only ate half of it on the mister's birthday. A 6-inch cake is just enough for a couple of days, without anyone getting sick of cake.

Second: I substituted a mixture of lowfat milk and whipping cream for the sour cream in the original recipe, and didn't notice any lack of richness, taste, or texture.

Third: I left off the decorative chocolate curls and used sprinkles to decorate instead. (And it's kinda pretty, but I wouldn't recommend it. The crunchiness of the hundreds-and-thousands detracts from the experience of the icing.)

So here's the recipe I used. You can find the original here.

Six-Inch Chocolate Stout Cake with Chocolate Ganache Frosting

for the cake

3/4 cup Chocolate Stout (Trader Joe's makes a great one, which I used)

1/4 cup strong black coffee

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1 cup whole wheat  flour and 1 cup all-purpose)

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp. salt

2 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/3 cup whipping cream

1/3 cup milk

for the icing

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1/2 pound chopped semisweet chocolate (I used chocolate chips)

Directions for the Cake

1) Set oven to 350 degrees F, and grease three 6-inch cake pans. LINE THE BOTTOMS WITH PARCHMENT PAPER. Very important. The cake is very moist, and you'll need the parchment to help get the cake layers out of the pans.

2) Melt butter in a medium saucepan with the chocolate stout and coffee until simmering. Stir in the cocoa powder and whisk till smooth. Remove from heat.

3) Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. 

4) Using your electric mixer (or a lot of elbow grease) beat eggs, vanilla, milk, and cream together, then add the COOLED stout mixture. Add flour mixture and beat on low speed until combined. Divide batter between the three pans. Bake until cake tester comes out clean; approximately 35 minutes. Transfer cakes to cake rack to cool.

Directions for the Icing

1) Simmer the whipping cream in a small, heavy saucepan. Remove from heat and whisk in the chocolate until melted and smooth. Refrigerate until spreadable, approximately two hours.

2) Use a small smear of frosting on the cake plate to stick first layer in place, then spread a small amount of frosting over it. Top with second cake layer, and spread with more icing. Repeat for third layer, then spread remaining icing over top and sides.

I used a stencil cut from parchment paper to get the sprinkles to stick in a specific pattern.

As noted in the original recipe, this cake tastes best fresh the first day, but it can be refrigerated and warmed for leftovers. 

Thanks for reading!  Enjoy your cake!

thanksgiving pretzels

My kiddo has a deep, abiding love for our red KitchenAid mixer. I hadn't planned to do much baking for Thanksgiving, but he made a special request to bake today, so we got the mixer down and pulled out the old BHG New Cook Book intending to make rolls . . . and somehow ended up deciding on pretzels instead.

And since kiddo wants everything to be green lately, he asked for food coloring to be added while we were kneading the dough.

Recipe similar to the one in the cook book can be found on the Better Homes & Gardens website.

Combine 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour and a package of active dry yeast in mixer bowl.

In saucepan, heat 1 1/2 cups of 1% milk, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and 1 teaspoon salt and whisk until warm (between 120 and 130 degrees F).

Add warm milk mixture to flour + yeast in mixer bowl; beat on medium speed for 30 seconds. Scrape down sides of bowl. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes.

Add up to 3 cups of all-purpose flour. (I used my white paddle attachment rather than the whisk attachment to my mixer for this step.)

Turn onto floured surface, add food coloring, and knead for 6—8 minutes. Roll into a ball then place in a greased bowl. Make sure top of ball is greased too, then cover with a towel and let rise for 75—90 minutes (till double in size).

Preheat oven to 475 degrees F. Punch dough down, then leave on a floured surface and let rest for 10 minutes.

Start a pot to boiling 3 quarts of water + 2 tablespoons of salt.

Roll dough into a 12x20 inch rectangle, then use a pizza cutter to cut 20 half-inch strips.

Twist into pretzel shapes, then bake on greased baking sheets for 4 minutes. Reduce oven temp to 350 degrees F.

Boil partially-baked pretzels in water for 2 minutes, flipping once, then drain on a towel. After putting back on baking sheet, brush with beaten egg white and sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes, until golden brown.

Taa-dum! These are best hot from the oven.

Here's hoping your Thanksgiving was a happy one, American readers! Happy Thursday, everyone else!

Thanks for reading.

toddler projects

We're burning through a lot of play dough lately. The store-bought kind gets dried out pretty fast, and the homemade kind has a tendency to go bad before it gets dried out, so I've been making a batch every couple of days. The kiddo loves to roll his little cars through it, making tracks and generally scabbing it up.

We also did a bunch of finger paintings this morning. There've been a lot more temper tantrums around here lately, and, sometimes, a lot more clinginess (all of which I've been chalking up to the whole "two-year-old" thing), but there are a few things that help his whole little self just relax: WALL-E, helping me use the KitchenAid mixer, and getting messy in some fingerpaint or sand.

Today, kiddo pointed to the colors he wanted (while trying to remember their names), and I squirted little bits onto the paper for him to smear around on the paper and his face and arms. I'm counting my lucky stars; Crayola invented washable finger paint before I had a kid.


the play dough recipe we've been using lately:

Whisk 3/4 cup white flour and 3/4 cup water in a bowl. Add 4 T. table salt, 1 T cream of tartar, and 2 T vegetable oil. Heat in sauce pan, stirring continuously. When the desired consistency is reached, remove from pan onto floured surface. Knead in one package of unsweetened lemon-ade Kool Aid mix (for scent). Divide into four equal balls. Knead a couple of drops of food coloring into each ball. Store in old play dough containers. Discard when it starts to smell "off".

(p.s. you can make these photos bigger by clicking on them . . . but you probably knew that!)