Xx emazingly sweet xX: Birthday Cakes: Des the Dinosaur

I was recently honoured with the task of making my good friend’s son a Dinosaur birthday cake. She had a design in mind that she had picked out from a book – Desmond (fondly nicknamed ‘Des’) so the sometimes challenging task of designing was taking out J

Hello - I am Des :)

Instead of using my normal chocolate cake recipe or mud cake, her little boy loves the Betty Crocker cake mix so she had asked that I use that. I am not a cake mix person so it was all a little foreign to me. I confirmed that it was better to use my sponge recipe if you are able, as the cake mix rose unevenly and though light and fluffy in texture was difficult to manage when making character cakes like these. In terms of the frosting, the birthday boy doesn’t like ganache or fondant either so it was covered in peppermint butter cream which obviously complemented the dinosaur’s green complexion.

In terms of the overall process which is outlined below, a friend of mine asked me how long it takes me to make these sorts of cakes. Obviously it all depends on the difficulty of the design but when she asked me this I couldn’t really give her an accurate answer. The key to making these sorts of cakes is planning in advanced and doing things step by step but allowing time in between each step for cooling, freezing, butter cream to dry etc. Patience is definitely the key but the result of seeing a little boy’s face light up is incredibly emazing and it is these sweet memories that make the fights with the butter cream and 37 degree transportation heat, all the worthwhile.

Des ready to be traced to baking paper

Ingredients:

1 batch of my family chocolate cake recipe

2 quantities of butter cream

3 teaspoons of peppermint essence

Green food colouring (or any other colour you would like)

Smarties for his spots

Mini marshmallows for his eyes

Wilton red food colouring pencil for the border

Method:

1. Make one quantity of my family chocolate cake recipe in a large baking tray;

2. Trace the design of the dinosaur onto baking paper;

3. Make two quantities of butter cream adding the peppermint essence and green food colouring and put in a container in the fridge to cool;

4. Once the cake is cooled completely put the design of the dinosaur over the top and hold it in place using toothpicks and cut out (see tips below);

5. Move the cut out dinosaur to your cake board and cover with butter cream and place it in the fridge to set;
6. Once the butter cream has set you are able to decorate it.

Tips:

· It is much easier to cut a frozen cake! So if you have the time put it in the freezer for an hour so that it becomes firm enough to cut without crumbling.

· I find it is easier to cut out a rough design first and get rid of the excess (which my partner likes to call ‘collateral’ for his belly) and then trim more delicately with a finer knife.
· Take the prepared butter cream out of the fridge about ten minutes before use so that it almost gets to room temperature and is easier to spread.

As dodgy as this picture is, I needed to include it as this was the temp as I was transporting Des. You can imagine the fun had with butter cream melting :)