If you have very creative friends or family like I do, there is a massive variety of different themed cakes to make for them.I had a big Alice in Wonderland themed do a couple of years back, so I thought "what better to do than make a Mad Hatter's multilayered cake!" Here's how I did it ......
ALICE IN WONDERLAND CAKE!
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Although it does take a lot of time to make all of the different flavoured cakes and buttercream, it was completely worth it in the end for the total effect! For my cake I made: a large square chocolate cake with a vanilla buttercream top for the base and a round coffee with chocolate buttercream in the middle and vanilla on top + a round orange cake with lemon icing as the hat. You can see this above with the different coloured layers on the side. This seems quite daunting, but once you get into baking it, it really isn't too complicated!
TO MAKE THE CHOCOLATE CAKE SQUARE BASE OF HAT:
This is just a really basic cake, the foundations of which I used for all 3 cakes. The same rules apply for each, though they are different flavours. With a multi component cake it is handy to have a really simple, quick and delicious recipe.
1. Cream 6oz/160g of softened butter with 6oz of caster sugar until pale and creamy. Gradually add 3 lightly beaten eggs and beat in.
2. Stir in gently 5oz of self raising flour and an ounce of sifted cocoa.
3. Put into one square relatively big cake tin and cook at 160 degrees fan oven/ 180 normal oven for 45 mins. It is done when it has come away from the sides, stopped sizzling and fills your kitchen with a gorgeous chocolatey smell. Yes it really is that simple!! :)
TO MAKE THE COFFEE CAKE ROUND PART OF HAT:
1. Repeat steps from recipe above with (butter, sugar, eggs and flour).
2. Add enough really strong black coffee to flavour the mix which means lots of coffee and not much hot water, you will probably need about a teaspoon. Stir in gently.
3. Put into one round medium sized cake tin that is smaller than your square one, and cook at 160 degrees fan oven/ 180 normal oven for 45 mins. It is done when it has come away from the sides, stopped sizzling etc.
TO MAKE THE ORANGE CAKE ROUND PART OF HAT: 1. Repeat steps from chocolate cake base recipe with (butter, sugar, eggs and flour).
2. Add one grated orange rind and a squeeze of that orange's juice and stir in gently.
3. Put into your round medium sized cake tin, and cook at 160 degrees fan oven/ 180 normal oven for 45 mins. It is done when it has come away from the sides, stopped sizzling etc.
THE BUTTERCREAM:
To glue the three cakes together and add to the amazing flavour dimension, these are the recipes to go by, but by all means use your own flavours with the theory if you want. Plus if you want a really psychedelic feel add different food colours to the buttercream :
VANILLA: (You will need two lots, one for top of chocolate cake, one for top of coffee cake, so double up this recipe).
1. Make sure you have 4oz/ 110g of butter soft enough to combine with icing sugar. Add 8oz/220g icing sugar to the butter and combine until soft, creamy and consistent. Add a couple of drops of vanilla essence and mix in. Keep aside.
CHOCOLATE (for coffee cake):
1. Repeat vanilla method except for at the vanilla essence stage add a dessert spoon of drinking chocolate already made up with a bit of hot water and stir in. Keep aside.
LEMON (for orange cake):
1. Repeat vanilla method except for at the vanilla essence stage add half a grated lemon rind and a squeeze of lemon juice, stir in. Keep aside.
TO ASSEMBLE: (Follow detailed instructions below or simple -r flow diagram below that)
To put the cakes together in a hat shape you will either need a large quantity of black roll out icing enough to cover all three cakes or as this is difficult to find in England, a large quantity of white roll out icing and a bottle of black food colouring.
Assuming your cakes are cool, place your round coffee cake on top in the middle of your square cake and cover the square based cake with icing up to the sides of the round one. Now take away the round cake from the top and you should be left with a square cake covered in icing except for the centre which should have a bare circle where you can still see the top of the chocolate cake. Cut the very top of your coffee cake off so that it has a flat top and bottom and then cut the cake in half like you would to fill with buttercream. Ice the bottom of one half of your coffee cakes with vanilla buttercream and stick it in the central circle buttercream down. Following this, ice the top of this coffee cake with chocolate buttercream and place the other half of the cake on top of this. Top the top of this cake with more vanilla buttercream. So now you should have - chocolate cake covered in roll out icing bar a circle in the middle, on top vanilla buttercream, 1/2 of coffee cake, chocolate buttercream, other 1/2 of coffee cake, vanilla buttercream. You with me? Hopefully ...
Now you need to cut the top of your orange cake to make both top and bottom flat. Cut your orange cake in half and place one half on top of the layer of vanilla buttercream that should be what is now on the very top of your cake. Then spread some lemon buttercream on top of the assembled half of orange cake and sandwich the second half of orange cake on top. THAT IS THEN IT WITH THE BUTTERCREAM ASSEMBLING!
However, you still need to cover the rest of your hat with roll out icing. In the end you should have the square and all of the round cakes completely covered in roll out icing so that you can't see any bare cake or buttercream. If you used white icing you have the lovely task of putting a quantity of black food colouring in a bowl and using a pastry brush (possibly one of your least favourite ones) to paint black food colouring onto the white icing and turn it black. This is what I came up with when I discovered you couldn't buy masses of black icing! You will probably need a couple of layers of painting to turn it from black to grey and let it soak into the icing between stages.
FLOW DIAGRAM:
If you have found it hard to follow my crazy instructions please see this simple - r diagram below.
Chocolate base > cover with roll out except for a circle in the middle to fit your fit round cake on top> vanilla buttercream > 1/2 of coffee cake > chocolate buttercream > other 1/2 of coffee cake > vanilla buttercream > 1/2 of orange cake > lemon buttercream > other 1/2 of orange cake > cover all visible cake with roll out icing > paint black if roll out was white.
FINISHING TOUCHES:
Yay! You have now made your Hatters birthday cake and hopefully it now resembles a top hat. Use a white icing tube to pipe 10/6 on the side like the original Hatter had on his top hat * (means the hat is worth 10 shillings and 6 pence). Tie a ribbon round the middle if you so please and present to delighted friends/family. To cut: cut from the top of the hat down to the square base in a sliver like fashion, then cut the chocolate base as a separate piece of cake, see picture below. I hope this cake worked out for you as well as it did for me and suitably impressed family and friends :) xxx
