A Cautionary Tale on the Dangers of Novelty Cakes: The Dinnersaurus

UPDATE: I've done a newer, more thorough version of this cake here!

Interested in 3D cakes? Check out my most recent 3D cake: a Panda Bear!

I’ve never been one for shaped cakes, or crafting novelty cakes of any kind really. As I mentioned in my previous blog, I made a cake for my mother’s birthday (which is today, incidentally) and I thought I’d take a leap of faith; I knew she would be happy with the usual cakey-cake cut in half with buttercream through the middle and sprinkles on top job, but I wanted – for my own pride – to try something a little different. Thus, the Dinnersaurus was born. And yes, not only have I been going through a biscuit phase, I've been going through a dinosaur phase.

When I was a little girl I had a book called Make a Monster, which was a book devoted totally the art of creating all kinds of representations of dinosaurs: from wooden models, to costumes, and – most importantly to me – food art. There were little ideas for making dinosaurs out of cake, and dinosaurs out of ice-cream, and the cake one has stuck in my mind until this day. It involved making a round cake and, using the first pattern, cut it into the appropriate shapes to arrange into a 3D dinosaur. Any unassigned bits of cake become chef’s perk, of course. My mother had asked specifically for an orange cake, so I obliged.

As you can see, it’s very simple. A lot of people, who probably have never heard of or read that book, do dinosaur cakes like this. The book instructed that one stick all the pieces together with jam, brush with jam, and then cover with marzipan; the decorative touches were added with nuts and dried fruit. But such a natural, ‘healthy’ attitude to this cake wouldn’t wash with me: I went ahead and stuck the whole lot together with buttercream, crumb coated it, and then covered it with luminous fondant icing.

I also used a slightly different template. Given that there would be a grand amassing of my family at this event, all of whom have an inhuman capacity for consuming cake, I made a dinosaur using two cakes. I arranged them like this:

Like was stuck to like, making everything twice the width, and twice the quantity. Each of the two cakes were split and filled with buttercream. I wanted to fill them with orange curd for a little extra richness and not so much toothache, but my mother prefers buttercream to curd when it comes to cake filling.

Of course, covering such a construction with fondant was exceptionally tricky: to make the fondant supple and mouldable enough to wrap around all the nooks and crannies, it needed to be quite thin, but in being thin it was very fragile. Needless to say, I put my finger through the fondant a few times, all of which were followed by a flurry of expletives. But, considering that this was my first proper, shaped novelty cake, I think I did very well.

Having been assembled and covered with fondant, it was time to decorate it and make it look more dinosaur-y. I had cut out some pentagonal shapes from teal fondant and left them to dry, and I used these to make the plates that ran down its back; I can’t officially say that is an exact representation of a stegosaurus, but it’s very heavily modelled on one. Steggies have always been my favourite dinosaur. Then I added some eyes, a smiley mouth, some blushed cheeks and painted on some eyelashes; I used the wide end of a piping tip to print scales all over the fondant. I then place it onto an impromptu cake board (a large piece of heavy cardboard covered with foil) that had been brushed with jam and sprinkled with green-tinted desiccated coconut. This, my friends, was a proper retro treat.


As you can see from the pictures, it was gobbled up in large amounts earlier this evening with great gusto. It’s backside is currently on top of the fridge.

Pouring Fondant Done the Awkward Way

I promised a recipe for pouring fondant, and I have delivered! Pouring fondant is very similar to glacé icing (only less watery and insipid) in that it is runny when made, but sets into a soft, sugary layer of icingy loveliness when it's set; compare it to ganache in this respect. This is the kind of icing found in the tops of Bakewell tarts, or enveloped around French Fancies.

As the title would suggest, this isn't the World's easiest way of making pouring fondant, but I don't like doing things easily. I like finding the most arse-about-face way of making things just to bask in the glory of succeeding at a challenge... I exaggerate: the only complicated thing about this recipe is a sugar thermometer, and you don't even need one. The important thing to note in this recipe, though, is that there are two separate stages of preparation: it's not a case of mix it up and it's done, there's a little bit of kitchen science involved.

When the sugar cooks in the saucepan, it becomes a liquid syrup because the sugar molecules have been dissolved into the water and all the little grains and crystals of sugar have been disintegrated. This is why recipes that require boiling sugar ask not to stir the syrup while it's boiling and to wash the sides of the pans while cooking: if the syrup is disturbed, or any crystals of sugar reintroduced into the mixture, it will start a chain reaction in which all the crystals of sugar are linked together again, and it'll set into a rock because the heat produces the perfect crystal growing conditions.

However, when making sweets such as fondant and fudge, we actually want a certain, controlled level of crystallisation to make the sweets opaque and a tiny bit grainy. This grainy sensation gives the eater the illusion of creaminess and smoothness, instead of full on sticky-sweet sugariness. But in order to control the level of crystallisation, we have to allow the syrup to cool down; this means the reaction won't run away with itself given the slightest excuse.

Don't believe this scientific gobbledigook? Check it out here in the completely unreferenced source of all my sugar-cooking knowledge.

Now, to start:

INGREDIMENTS
This will cover one 8 inch (20 centimeter) round cake, 7x9 (17x24 centimeter) rectangle cake, or 12 fairy cakes

• 8 ounces (225 grammes) caster sugar

• 2 fluid ounces (60 milliliters) water

• ¼ teaspoon white vinegar, or lemon juice

• Optional: 1 tablespoon glucose syrup, or light corn syrup

HOW TO

• Prepare your work area: ready a shallow bowl of water and ice-cubes for sugar testing, and lightly grease a medium sized glass bowl.

• In a medium-size heavy saucepan, pour the water and stir in the cream of tartar or vinegar. 

• Pour the sugar into the middle of the water, and add the syrup if using. This makes a ring of water between the edge of the pan and the pile of sugar, reducing the chances of crystallisation.

• Put onto a medium-low heat and stir with a wooden spoon or spatula. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, then allow to come to the boil.

• Once the sugar is boiling, stop stirring. Don't even touch it. If you see crystals clinging to the pan sides, use a pastry brush dipped in hot water to wash them off, but for the love of God don't scrape anything.

• Once boiling, attach your handy-dandy sugar thermometer to the side of the pan. Cook to soft ball stage, which is 113 - 115°C (235 - 240°F). Or you can do a cold water test: take the pan off the heat momentarily and take a teaspoon of syrup. Drop it into the bowl of water and ice-cubes. The syrup should be firm enough to be rolled into a ball, but the ball should be flattened easily and shouldn't be able to hold its shape of its own accord.

• Having reached the appropriate temperature, take the pan and pour the contents into the glass bowl, never scraping the sides under any circumstances. Set on the work surface and allow to cool to about 37°C (100°F), or until the pan is a touchable heat from below.

• Beat the fondant until opaque and thick but still pourable, as pictured. Pour onto your preferred cake, and spread around to smooth.

NOTES

• Beat in 1 ounce of any of strained jam at the end.

• Make the syrup comepletely with citrus juice, or any fruit juice for that matter.

• Use half water, half coconut milk.

• Add a teaspoon of any kind of flavouring essence, like vanilla, peppermint or rum.

• Add a tablespoon of golden syrup to the syrup, and beat in 1 ounce of softened butter at the end for toffee or caramel flavour.

This is my favourite icing for cake slices and traybakes, as it can be poured onto the pre-cut cake in one fell swoop, and the cake can be cut into pieces once iced. To cut this icing you'll need to cut it while still a little soft and with a hot knife, like I explained in my coffee and raspberry slice recipe.

This is the basic basey base of the fondant icing, and it can be coloured and flavoured very easily. There are a myriad of ways to flavour this versatile icing. For example:

Coffee Sponge Slice with Raspberry Fondant Icing (Wheat Free)

'Coffee and raspberry?', I hear you (or imagine hearing you) say? Yes: raspberry and coffee go very well together.

If you think about it, coffee is very similar to chocolate in its flavour; if one were to draw a comparison, one could say that coffee is the more acrid and sharp version and chocolate is the warmer, richer version of the same taste. So, basically anything that goes well with chocolate tends to pair with coffee, too (with a few exceptions, of course).

Coffee and mint, coffee and vanilla, coffee and hazelnut, coffee and orange, coffee and caramel, and coffee with raspberry; these are all very pleasing combinations. Just imagine yourself going to a café to order a coffee and seeing what kind of syrups you can add to it.

As for the anatomy of this particular piece of patisserie, it's basically a coffee favoured sponge with a raspberry pouring fondant topping. The sponge is flavoured with both strong coffee and coffee grinds, which gives it a nice speckled appearance akin to a poppy-seed cake, and also means that it tastes quite strongly of coffee.The topping is a boiled sugar pouring fondant, flavoured with strained raspberry jam; it's best to use a jam with a high fruit percentage (sixty percent or more is preferable) to make sure it's nice and fruity.  I like very strong flavours, you might've already guessed.

And you will soon learn that I just have a thing for sliced cakes and tray bakes. That's what I get for being an Irish Protestant... it's just in my blood.

So, to make this deliciousness, you will need:

INGREDIMENTS
For one 6x9 inch (15x23 centimetre) cake:

• 4 ounces (115 grammes) spelt flour
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) cornflour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon ground coffee
• 3 medium eggs, at room temperature
• 4½ ounces (130 grammes) caster sugar
• 1½ ounces (45 grammes) melted butter
• 1½ ounces (45 grammes) sunflower oil
• 4 tablespoons (60 milliliters) strong black coffee

For icing:

• 8 ounces (225 grammes) caster sugar
• 2 fluid ounces (60 milliliters) water
• ¼ teaspoon white vinegar, or lemon juice
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) strained raspberry jam
• Optional: about 4 tablespoons of raspberry- or coffee-flavoured syrup.

HOW-TO

• Prepare the cake using this recipe, and bake it into a 7x9 inch (17x23 centimeter) cake tin for 20-25 minutes, or until springy to touch and a cocktail stick stuck into the thickest part comes out with one or two crumbs stuck to it. Leave to cool.
• If you want to make the sponge a little moister, you can sprinkle the cake, while still a little warm, with raspberry- or coffee-flavoured syrup.
• Once the cake is completely cold, start preparing your pouring fondant using this technique. As you already know (or at least you ought to know / for I have often told you so) that pouring fondant must be used immediately after making, as it can't be stored in liquid form like beaten icings.
• Pour your prepared fondant onto the cake and, working very quickly, spread the icing around with a palette knife. You can make swirls on the top if you want but I tend to do streaks.

While the fondant is still sticky, you can sprinkle any kind of pretty shiny things, like hundreds and thousands or vermicelli, but I like leaving mine plain and simple. Allow to fondant to set for about 10 minutes before cutting.

A handy trick I've learnt when it comes to cutting cakes is making sure your knife is nice and hot. I do this by keeping a tall glass or vase full of hot water by my make while I'm cutting, dipping the knife in it before every cut, and using some kitchen paper to wipe off the crumbs between every cut. This means you'll get a perfect, clean cut every time, as if you did it by laser...