Wolf Cake

Saturday was the Goose's 13th birthday and my first time using fondant. I did not take step-by-step pictures because my hands were alternately covered in cake, buttercream, fondant, gumpaste, cornstarch, shortening, and black food coloring the entire time. But here is the video I used to sculpt the cake and apply the fondant.




I used gumpaste for the nose and muzzle, but covered the muzzle with fondant. I used a bamboo skewer to attach the muzzle to the cake head. Next time I will make the head, including muzzle, in one piece. I layered three 8-inch rounds for the body (and used one wooden chopstick inserted down the middle of the cakes for support) and carved up a fourth 8-inch round for the head. I froze the cake after applying the fondant and when it was dry I used another bamboo skewer to rough it up and simulate fur. The front legs are pure fondant. The eyes were the most difficult and the easiest. I had been planning on using some leftover plastic eyes that I had from my stuffed animal xmas projects, but I lost them. Then I tried making two black eyes with the gumpaste and food coloring, like the nose, but they looked bad. After shedding a few tears, I shoved a couple of brown M&M's in the eyeholes and was pleasantly surprised by how good they looked. :) This cake was not easy, even with the video. I am not lying about shedding some tears. Before the ears, nose, and eyes were on I was convinced that it looked like a seal and would have to be thrown away. But it all worked out, I think. Goose loved her cake and did not want candles in it or to even cut it at all, although we eventually did. I made Martha's Vanilla Cake.

Cooking Light Yellow Sheet Cake

I found this cake recipe on Cooking Light's website. I made a couple of changes and used Martha Stewart's frosting instead, and I made a couple of changes to that, too.



For the cake--with my changes:
1/2 cup butter (1 Smart Balance stick)
1 cup fat free plain yogurt
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk

After reading through the recipe I was unsure that it would work, but the reviews were good and that is the best indicator of how a recipe will turn out. The directions call for whisking the butter and yogurt (they used sour cream) until combined.



Then add the sugar and vanilla and beat on medium speed for 3 minutes. I used the whisk attachment on my mixer to combine the butter and yogurt, then switched to the paddle after adding the sugar.



That looks wrong, doesn't it? I saw that and thought, oh no! After the butter/sugar stage a cake mixture should be the epitome of fluffy, not grainy and so...wrong. At this point I figured my instincts were right and this cake recipe was not going to work. But instead of throwing it all away I thought, why not waste a few more ingredients and add the flour and buttermilk? :)

Add half the flour, baking soda, and salt and beat on low speed until combined. Then add the buttermilk, mix until combined. After adding the last of the flour and mixing (being careful not to overmix), the batter looks like this:




So right! It also may be the best tasting cake batter ever. Seriously delicious. I lowered their suggested temperature to 325 because I used a glass pan and baked for 35 minutes. After it was done I just left it in the pan and placed it on a raised wire rack to cool. Normally I would remove the cake from the pan, but I was just making it for our family and decided to frost it and serve from the pan.



Now the frosting...oh, my. So good. Martha calls for Valrhona cocoa, which is a fancy dutch processed cocoa. (And judging by the amazon.com reviews, overrated.) I didn't have any of that. Or any dutch processed cocoa. In fact, I was almost out of my regular Hershey's cocoa. So, I used:

1/2 cup cocoa
2 1/2 squares baking chocolate
9 1/2 T of butter (I know, weird, but I had to decrease the butter by 2 1/2 T because of the oil in the baking chocolate)
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla

I melted the baking chocolate in a double boiler





and then poured that chocolate over the butter and cocoa in my mixer bowl and mixed.



I added the rest of the ingredients all at once and beat it until it was creamy. I found that I didn't need to adjust the milk or powdered sugar amounts. Leave it to Martha to get it exactly right.




The frosting was so amazing that I will probably make it the exact same way next time, even if I have a truckload of cocoa. The cake itself was wonderful. I could tell that it wasn't a full fat cake, but it certainly did not diminish the flavor. The best part was that the cake was still every bit as moist the next day. That's a rarity with cake. I will definitely make it again!

The changes I made to the cake recipe were purely for personal taste. I dislike the flavor of sour cream in cakes and plain yogurt can be substituted (with a better result, I think) in equal amounts. I used Martha's frosting because I also dislike cream cheese frostings. Too heavy for me, especially since I prefer no frosting at all. :)