Volcano Cake!

Speaking of birthdays I just realized that I never ended up sharing the awesome volcano cake I made for my hubby's birthday! It was pretty epic and I really believe that it deserves to be shared. It was made with 1.5 boxes of cake mix, an entire jar of jam and a whole lotta icing! If you've got a special birthday coming up that requires a Volcano cake don't panic--it's not as hard to make as you might think. Read on for my step by step instructions on how to create the perfect (and scientifically accurate!) Volcano cake.

Ingredients:

- 1 box Chocolate cake mix

- 1 box Rainbow Sprinkles cake mix

- 2 small (or one large) container of chocolate frosting

- 1 large jar raspberry jam, warmed and thinned

- small bag of stick pretzels

- bag of shaved coconut

- green food colouring

- miniature plastic dinosaurs

Instructions:

1. Mix both cake batters according to directions in seperate bowls and preheat oven. Fill one round cake pan (8x8 or 9x9) with chocolate batter, and one round cake pan with rainbow batter. Bake according to package directions and set aside to cool.

2. Using left over batter from both bowls make your own "marble" batter in an oven safe glass bowl by adding a little of one, and then some of the other. Bake the marble batter until a toothpick comes out clean. Set aside to cool.

3. Loosen the chocolate and rainbow cakes from the tins and stack them on top of each other with a layer of raspberry jam in the middle.

4. Once cooled, loosen the marble cake from the bowl and place ontop of the other two layers, again with a layer of jam between them. So you should now have three layers of cake, with two layers of jam. Using a large serrated knife trim on an angle the bottom two layers to create a sloped edge. Using the same knife cut out a small circle shape in the top of the smallest cake to create a little well that you can fill fill with jam. (Like picture below)

5. Once the cake is assembled you can apply your first layer of frosting to help seal it. Make this rough, it doesn't need to be neat and precise.... it's a volcano after all! Place in the fridge overnight to chill cake and set frosting.

6. Remove from fridge and apply a much thicker layer of frosting taking to care to help "shape" your volcano into a nice sloping shape. Again, this doesn't need to be smooth and shouldn't be, because it's meant to look like rock. Make sure to leave your hole at the top so you can add the rest of the lava later.

7. Take the remaining jam and warm it up to thin it out a little bit. Keep spooning it into the middle of the cake in the hole you carved out until it starts to over flow and drip down the cake. Add some spoonfuls to the natural patterns that emerged to thicken the lines up a bit. Put cake back into fridge as quickly as possible to "set" the jam by thickening it back up when it cools. This will help it to stay in a flowing pattern without all pooling on your tray instead.

8. Place some of your coconut shavings into a bowl and add a few drops of green food colouring. Mix thoroughly to coat the coconut. It doesn't take much food colouring so just keep mixing it. Once you've got your coconut coloured you can take a pretzel stick and dip one end into some of the leftover frosting and then roll it around in the coconut to create a little tree. Stick as many trees as you'd like randomly into your volcano. 

9. The finishing touch is to add a few plastic mini dinosaurs and you're all set! Keep cake chilled until you're ready to serve and enjoy!

The cake looks awesome once it's cut as well and you can see all the layers inside. The lava even started to drip down on the inside too. Yuuuuum! Happy cake making!

Cake Experiments

So the boy-o's first birthday is rapidly approaching, and I've been busy collecting little bits of stuff here and there for his Pirate Themed party. One of the main focal points for a kids birthday is certainly the cake and as a crafty person I knew right away that I wanted to make his cake myself rather than hire someone to make it. I've never worked with fondant before, but I was considering making him a fondant cake. I decided I would try making a few "practice cakes" in order to get a handle on how to use this fondant stuff well before the boy-o's birthday.

My first attempt at a fondant cake was for Valentine's Day. Like all last minute urgent decisions I didn't decide to make this cake until two days before Valentine's Day, which meant I was a little limited on the supplies that were still available. There was no red fondant or any red dye left, so I picked up white and pink, and some blue and purple dye. The cake was just a simple Rainbow box mix with butter cream icing. (There was much moaning about the lack of chocolate...)

I didn't have a proper fondant rolling pin, or a cake mat, but I managed to work it out with a large wooden rolling pin and my kitchen counter. I found it pretty easy to work with, and I didn't have any troubles making sure there were no creases in the sides or edges when I smoothed the white fondant over the cake. So far so good!

When it came time to make the decorations: the bow, twisted ribbon, and the hearts, I found the fondant resembled play dough an *immense* amount in terms of texture and work-ability. I dyed some of the extra white fondant blue to make the bow and found it pretty easy to work the colour through evenly. The pink was pre-dyed.

I added the final detailing on the bow with an edible marker, which was also pretty easy to use, although I did have to press harder with it than I imagined I would. All in all for a first attempt at using fondant I think it was a big success! There are definitely some things I learned along the way, and there are some mistake I made as I went that I would fix for next time--largely because I had no idea what I wanted to actually make ahead of time.

I'm feeling confident after this first attempt that I'll be able to make the boy-o an awesome birthday cake! I've got one more practice attempt before then at the end of March for Hubby's birthday. He's requested a volcano cake! Go big or go home I guess!