Is it a bird?
Is it a plane??
No, it's...
Well, it's not actually Superman either. But close... It's a Captain America Cake!!!!
I made this cake for my beautiful cousin Tamsyn's birthday a few weeks back (this post is dedicated to you Tam!), as she really loves Marvel comics. But even if you're not a comic book whiz, read ahead to find out how I did the hidden star design and the super shiny (and delicious) marshmallow icing!
The cake itself is a simple butter cake recipe from Donna Hay (I got it through this blog though). I made a double batch to make one big cake and cut it in half, but I would actually recommend doing two batches to bake the two sandwich halves separately. I basically didn't get enough rise in the double-batch cake to make very good halves, but I did also have to hand-mix part of it because my electric mixer died which may have affected the amount of air I could get into the mix. Anyways, I'll post both how I did it and how I would change what I did, and you can take from it what you will!
INGREDIENTS:
The list is for a single batch to make one layer of the sandwich, so make two. In brackets is the amount to make a double batch to make one big cake.
- 125g butter, softened (250g)
- 1 cup caster sugar (2 cups)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (1 generous tsp)
- 3 eggs (4 eggs)
- 1 1/2 cups plain flour (3 cups)
- 1/2 tsp baking powder (1 tsp)
- 1/4 tsp baking soda (1/2 tsp)
- 1/2 cup milk (1 cup)
To make the blue stars, you need to make a third batch and add 1-2 tsp blue food colouring.
For the icing I drew inspiration from another Donna Hay recipe. You will need:
- 6 egg whites, at room temperature
- 1 - 1 1/2 tsp tartaric acid (I added a bit too much, and it gave the icing a great sherberty taste, so I'd advocate a heaped teaspoon at least!)
- 2 cup caster sugar
- red and blue food colouring
STEP 1: MAKE YOUR CAKES
Prep work: grease a 23cm round tin with butter and line the base with baking paper (or two round tins if you're doing two separate layers). Turn the oven onto 150 degrees C.
Put the butter in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric hand-mixer to further soften the butter (this makes it easier to cream in the sugar). Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy (for at least a few minutes).
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Now add the vanilla (savour that smell!!) and beat again to incorporate.
And, voila! You have cake batter. Pour this into your tin and level the top as best as you can before putting into the oven. The large double-batch cake took about 2 hours to bake, but if you're doing the two layers the original recipe recommends 1 hour and 5 minutes. If doing this, put the two cakes on the same rack in the oven to ensure even baking.
Once baked it'll be a lovely golden brown colour, and come out clean when pricked with a skewer in the middle. Let the cake cool in the tin before taking it out.
In the meantime, you can make the blue cake to make the stars. Essentially, you need to repeat all of this again, but with the single cake batch amounts of ingredients, and at the end when you've made your mix just add 1-2 tsp of blue food colouring. Don't be afraid to really add that colour - it loses a bit of its vibrance through baking, so more is more here. You also want to use a rectangular tin rather than a round one. I used a ~26cm x 21cm one with the aim of getting ~3cm depth in my cake.
STEP 2: MAKING THE HIDDEN STARS
Once your cakes have cooled, the fun really begins. Start with the main cake. If you didn't bake two separate halves, you need to cut the one cake in half using a long serrated knife. Try to make these halves as even as possible by cutting straight through the middle. Choose one of these halves to be the base of the cake and set the top half to one side.
To this bottom half, take a star-shaped cookie cutter and use the bottom two star-points to cut into the cake in a circle in the middle of the cake. This creates a base for the blue stars to sit in. Note: I got this idea from the Great British Bake-Off 2012 Winner John Whaite, who made a hidden heart cake in the first episode's hidden design cake challenge.
Now, here's where things get a bit tricky. I had originally planned to then do the same thing to the top layer of cake using the top three star-points of the cutter, but my cake top was too thin. So this is how I improvised...
I went ahead and cut out star shapes from the blue cake, and then placed these in the prepared base. I then cut off a bit from the top of the top layer (it was a bit round and needed flattening anyways) and stuffed this (rather crudely, admittedly...) into the hollow formed by the ring of stars. The outside of the stars will be filled with marshmallow icing to make up the distance between the two cake layers.
STEP 3: MARSHMALLOW ICING
Over a double-boiler, or a heat-proof bowl set over boiling water, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Don't throw out your egg yolks! Keep them to make a delicious lemon curd (this recipe is awesome!!).
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| Soft peaks!! |
Add the tartaric acid and beat in. Then add the sugar 1/4 cup at a time, beating in between each addition. The mix should go glossy and semi-stiff.
I put half of the icing around the outside of the stars and waited for it to set a bit before putting the top layer on top.
Reserve a small amount of icing to add food colouring to (~1/2 cup each for the blue and the red) but use the rest to cover the entire outside of the cake. Split the leftover icing into two separate bowls and add red and blue food colouring. When you've got the colour you want, put the icing into a small ziplock bag. Push out the air, close the ziplock and then cut off a tiny piece of one of the corners. And tada! You have what I call a poor-man's piping bag! Pipe on the Captain America shield, or whatever else you want to decorate your cake with.
And that's it! Admittedly it is a bit labour-intensive, but the result with the stars inside is totally worth it for the surprise it gives to everyone when you serve it. It makes it just a little bit special, which is appropriate I think for a birthday! Also the icing went down a treat, with one of the dinner guests going back for a second serving... of JUST icing.
To tie this all off I thought I'd finish with an inspiring Captain America quote:
Courage, Honour, Loyalty, Sacrifice. You're braver than you think.
I feel like that sums up this cake pretty well. It looks hard, but it's really quite simple and just takes a bit of determination! Enjoy ;-)
