Gruffalo cake
- Mel.x
- Apr 28, 2018
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 11, 2018
About a month ago I asked my 3-year-old, Frankie or ''Crankie Frankie'' as I like to call him, what kind of cake he wanted for his Birthday party. He decided on a Gruffalo Cake. Could he have picked anything more awkward?!?!
I’m sitting here thinking to myself, how the hell am I going to make a Gruffalo…… so I turn to my good old friend YouTube - you can find almost any tutorial on YouTube.
I found one I liked, ordered my colours and got started. (If anyone wants the link to the video just leave a wee comment and I’ll post it).
I made the Gruffalo topper about a week ago, if you put a bit of Tylo powder in the fondant it’ll go rock hard and keep forever, well maybe not forever but you’ll be able to use it for a long, long time. Now these are just for decoration, well I wouldn’t fancy eating it anyway and as long as you don’t glue it to the top of the cake you can use the same cake topper a good few times.
I decided to put him sitting on a log, so much easier to do sitting than standing. There’s a few different things the log can be made from; Some people use Rice Krispies mixed with either melted marshmallow or chocolate, just wrap this in clingfilm, shape and leave to set. You can also use a solid block of fondant. I chose tinfoil, just scrunch it up into a log shape and wrap in some brown fondant and mark some curvy lines and wee circles to make it look tree-like.
I think I had the most trouble with the head (I always have the most trouble with heads and faces), but after 3 or 4 attempts and a few thoughts of giving up, I got it pretty decent looking… has anyone ever made a nose? Noses are HARD!!! Body, arms and legs were fairly standard, I just hate doing heads.
Complaining aside, this is my absolute favourite pastime, I find baking and making little figures so so relaxing and there’s a great sense of achievement when you’ve finished and produced your own little mini artwork. It's definitely my Happy Place.
Now onto the sponge, I’d been using the same recipe for ages and I always found the cakes to be a bit dry, so I thought I’d try a new one.(Best idea EVER) I settled on Mary Berry’s Victoria Sponge recipe, I love Mary Berry. Now in most sponge recipes the first step is to cream the butter and sugar then add eggs and fold in the dry ingredients, but this one is different, you literally throw everything into a bowl and mix it all together until it’s nice and smooth, I was a bit wary about this because all the other cakes I’ve ever made have been very specific about creaming the butter and sugar first, it’s like the golden rule of cake baking.
My verdict on this recipe is that Mary Berry is a genius and I will never doubt her again, this is the lightest, moistest, fluffiest sponge I have ever made. It’s my new go-to recipe and I’ll be using it forever.
And finally onto my 2 baking disasters, well near-disasters. We’ll start with the sponge, it was in the oven, baking away nicely and near the end I noticed that one of the sponges browning faster so I opened up the oven and swapped them round, and 2 minutes later to my absolute horror I looked in through the glass and one of my beautifully risen, perfectly domed cakes had dropped in the middle, I was so annoyed, but it worked out ok anyway, I used that sponge for the bottom and just cut the strange doughnut - shaped imperfection off the top of it and it all worked out, nobody would ever know, until they read this of course.
Near disaster number 2, now you’d think I’d know better than to leave Frankie alone in a kitchen with a decorated cake, I mean it’s not the first time this has happened. I leave the room for a grand total of 6 minutes, and I walk back in and hear my darling little boy say “Mummy, I Eated the cake” to say I freaked out would be a serious understatement. I ran to the counter to assess the damage and thank God he’d only picked off a few of the letters and flowers, (Pic below of his handiwork), panic over, simple enough to fix and lots of threats that if he touches the cake again it goes in the bin. I was just so glad that I hadn’t put the Gruffalo on yet because he would not have stood a chance with my little icing fiend.
So that’s about all I have to say about my adventures in the Deep Dark Wood, I will have my older boy’s Birthday next month so that’ll probably be my next fancy cake blog, he’s already decided on his cake, but I’ll leave it as a wee surprise for you all.
X
link to the recipe for the sponge
https://melaniehubbard18.wixsite.com/melskitchen/victoria-sponge
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