Candy Cake

I started thinking about having a Pinata type cake for Jeff's birthday after a conversation with Elizabeth about what Pinatas were. When I looked on the internet at other cakes like this, most seemed to cook the cakes in normal cake tins and hollow out the middle. I thought they often looked a bit messy once you cut into them.

On a recent shopping trip Jeff pointed out a cake tin where bakes the cake with a hollowed out shape of a heart in the middle to fill with mouse or ice cream or a different cake. He had seen it being used on Nerdy Nummies. I thought this would do the trick. So I ordered this one from amazon.

I also googled some images of cakes to get ideas for decorating the outside of the cake. I liked the idea of having sweeties on the outside but I didn't want it to be over the top, or too like the "I can't believe you made that cake".

And this is what I ended up with:

I had to redo my cake because there was not enough cake mixture to rise above the shape of the heart inside. And second time round I ran out of eggs, so I have a mixture of large and medium eggs. But the cake was really fluffy and moist that I might do the same next time!

Cake Ingredients:

• 375g soft unsalted butter
• 375g caster sugar
• 3 large eggs, 3 medium eggs, one egg yolk (6 large eggs will probably do)
• 375g SR flour
• 2 tsp of baking powder
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 tbsp milk

Method:

• Preheat oven to 160 degrees
• Grease the two baking trays
• Mix all the ingredients except the milk together in the food mixer. I mixed them for about 5 minutes until the mixture was fluffy and airy. Then I slowly added milk until the mixture was a soft drooping consistency.
• Add the mixture to the tins so that they cover the shape of the heart.
• Cook till it golden and the sponge springs back when touched. About 25-30 minutes.
• Leave them in the tins for a few minutes before popping them out of the tins and placing on a cooling wire.

When they cooled down I added sweets to the bottom layer of the cake. I used Haribo Starmix and some Tesco Jelly Beans. They had to be raised above the level of the cake because of the top half of the heart. I did not add enough. I felt that I could have tried to put a lot more in.

I would have liked there to have been more of a spilling out effect when the cake was cut. There probably would have been had there just been the jelly beans inside. Or if I had gone with smarties or skittles or something.

When served it didn't look very elegant because of the hole. But the taste made up for that.

Then I glazed the cake with some runny apricot jam, because I know that can be good for keeping the cake from crumbling when you add the icing.

Vanilla Buttercream Icing Ingredients (from Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery)

• 110g soft butter
• 60ml semi-skimmed milk
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 500g icing sugar

Method

• Mix butter, milk, vanilla extract and half the icing sugar together until the mixture is smooth. Then gradually add in the rest of the icing sugar.

I spread half the buttercream icing onto the cake. Then put it in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

Then I spread the other half on.

I pressed skittles around the outside and put lolly pops on the top. Of course the lolly pops sang into the hollow of the heart, so more sweets inside would probably have given them more resistance then they could have stood up a little higher. But overall I was very pleased with the result. So was Jeff. And the girls actually went "wow" when they saw it.