Zesteratops: the Return of the Novelty Dinnersaurus!

Say hello to Zesteratops!

When I launched my blog back in 2013, I made a dinosaur shaped cake for my mother's birthday that year. It's my blog's most popular blog post, racking up over 1000 views so far!

As such, I thought an update of my technique was well overdue. I'm not really a novelty cake person, which you could probably tell from the fact that I've only ever done a 3D dinosaur and a 3D panda cake in the past. However, my attitude towards novelty cakes has been changing: recently my parents decided to foster an eleven year old boy, and having a child in the family again really changes to chemistry of family gatherings! (He actually named this cake: I was originally going to call it Lemonpleurodon)

Mum loves lemon or orange flavour cakes, and the previous dinnersaurus was orange flavoured so this time I went for lemon. I also decided to decorate with buttercream rather than fondant. I absolutely hate working with fondant, but I used it to design the details, like the back sails, tail spikes, eyes, and smiling face.

This project is very time consuming: from the moment I started mixing the cake, to the moment I put on the last tail spike, it took 6 hours. So keep this in mind when you go to make it!

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DIFFICULTY

Requires cake shaping and novelty decorating

TIME

About 6 hours

RECIPE RATING

Needs experience

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INGREDIMENTS

To make a dinosaur cake that will serve 16 to 20 people

One deep 9 inch (23 centimetre) round lemon flavoured cake

Some rolling fondant (sugarpaste) icing, to make decorative details

Food colouring

For the lemon curd

1 medium egg

4 teaspoons (20 millilitres) cornflour

2 large lemons

4 ounces (115 grammes) caster sugar

2 ounces (55 grammes) unsalted butter

Pinch or two of salt

For the icing

5 ounces (140 grammes) unsalted butter

5 ounces (140 grammes) Greek yoghurt

5 ounces (140 grammes) caster sugar

Zest of 1 lemon, see Method

10 ounces (280 grammes) white chocolate

Two pinches of salt

Yellow food colouring

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METHOD

• Before assembly, prepare the icing and the lemon curd. This recipe makes twice as much lemon curd as you need, so you can use the remainder for another project.

To make the lemon curd

• Zest the two lemons, and place the zest of one of the lemons into a measuring jug. Use the zest of the other lemon for the icing later.
• Into the jug, squeeze the two lemons and then top up with water to make 8 fluid ounces (240 millilitres) of liquid.
• In a small saucepan, blend the cornflour, sugar, and egg. Slowly mix in the diluted lemon juice until you have a fully combined mixture.
• Cook the mixture over medium high heat, mixing constantly, until it comes to the boil. Boil for a full minute or so until thickened and it loses some of its opacity.
• Sieve the mixture into a bowl, and then mix in the butter and a pinch of salt. To make the lemon curd taste richer, you might need to add an extra pinch of salt.
• Allow to cool to room temperature before covering with cling film, making sure the film touches the curd, and chilling in the fridge for about an hour.

While the curd is cooling, make the icing

• Follow the instructions in my Simnel cake recipe to make the icing, including the lemon zest in the cooked yoghurt and sugar mixture and omitting the lemon juice. Allow to cool as instructed.
• Tint the icing a pale yellow colour to represent the lemon flavour. Or, you can make it any summery colour you like.

Assembly

• Take the cake, and cut it in half horizontally. Don't cut off the dome: you'll need that to help the shape of the dinosaur.
• Cut each half in half vertically. Now you will have 4 semicircles: two flat ones, and two with domes.
• Take the two domed semicircles and sandwich a flat semicircle between them. Use lemon curd to secure the shapes together.

• Take the remaining flat semicircle and cut it into thirds. You will have two rounded shapes, and one long, rectangular shape. The rectangular shape will be used later for the tail.
• Take the two rounded pieces and sandwich them together with the lemon curd to make the head.

• You now have a body piece, a head piece, and a tail piece. Secure all the elements together as shown using some icing, and then trim the cake to make it more dinosaur shaped.
• After all the cutting and trimming, you'll have roughly 4 ounces (115 grammes) of cake trimmings. Use these and some more lemon curd to make some cake truffle mixture, and use this to make some legs. If you don't have enough cake crumbs to make all four legs, just make two legs and form the remaining legs out of fondant.

• Fix the legs to the body with icing, cover the entire cake in a crumb coat, and then chill in the fridge for about 20 minutes before decorating however you like! I used a petal piping technique to make scales, but you could use fondant if you like.

THIS TIME IN 2017: American Style: Chocolate Fudge Tart
THIS TIME IN 2016: Chocolate Biscuit Cake, a.k.a: Rocky Road
THIS TIME IN 2015: Zingy Lemon Gâteau (Wheat Free)
THIS TIME IN 2013: Experiment: Homemade Sprinkles
There was no blog on this day in 2014.

Question: "How much chocolate and cornflakes should I use to make Cornflake Cakes?", with Video

The humble cornflake cake: a staple of every Irish household all throughout the year.

These cakes are very simple to make, and are often done as a fun baking project for small children because they only need two ingredients: chocolate, and cornflakes (or sometimes rice crispies). Mix 'em up, pop 'em in cases, refrigerate until set, and Bob's your uncle!

However, the question I sometimes get is how much of each should I use? The simple answer is melt an amount of chocolate and then add cornflakes until it's "right", which is how pretty much every Irish Mammy has done it since the dawn of time. But, if you want to know exactly how much of each to use, so that you know if you have the right amount of ingredients before you get started, here is your answer:

It's a very simple weight ratio of 2 parts chocolate to 1 part cornflakes.

That's it: melt two parts in weight of chocolate, and mix in one part in weight of cornflakes until thoroughly coated. It couldn't be simpler. If you want a little extra richness, you can replace a sixth of the chocolate with unsalted butter, but this is purely optional.

To make a dozen small cakes, you will need half a pound, or 8 ounces (225 grammes) chocolate and quarter of a pound, or 4 ounces (115 grammes) cornflakes. Decorate however you like with mini eggs, or fluffy chick toys. You can of course make fewer huge cornflake cakes if you like, or multiply the amounts to make loads of cakes; it's completely up to you.

Check out the video below, where I demonstrate how to make them.

Multicoloured Sweet Popcorn (Gluten-, Egg-, and Dairy Free) with Video!

If there's something that kid's particularly love, it's sweet things. And if there's something they love more than that, it's brightly coloured sweet things! Although, sometimes adults like it too.. especially this adult.

This is a simple way to make frosted popcorn of any colour you have available, that doesn't require a sugar thermometer: all you need is a microwave and an oven, and you'll have multicoloured popcorn in under 15 minutes.

If you want to add flavourings, you can add any flavouring oil or essence to the sugar syrup before tossing the popcorn. My companion likes popcorn that is sweet and salty, so I usually add a good few pinches of salt for that sweet/savoury experience.

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DIFFICULTY

Requires mixing and using a microwave

TIME

Under an hour

RECIPE RATING

Easy!

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INGREDIMENTS

Makes enough popcorn for 6 people

3 ounces (85 grammes) popped popcorn kernels
3 ounces (85 grammes) caster sugar
3 tablespoons (45 millilitres) water
Liquid food colouring

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FREE FROM

Eggs, nuts, dairy, gluten, yeast

CONTAINS

Maize, refined sugar

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STORAGE

Best eaten on the day it's made, but can be eaten the net day if kept in a airtight plastic bag or container.

Pull-Apart Pumpkin Cake (Dairy-Free Sponge Recipe) with Video!

If you are planning a Halloween party for entertaining, you will always need some kind of cake as a centre piece for the party table. Layer cakes, like the Bat 'n' Burg, will always impress older kids and adults, but little children are much more easily impressed. So, if you're entertaining little ones, you don't need to go to so much bother: this pull-apart cake will make your life easier, and will make sure everyone has a piece of cake that's the same size.

This video demonstrates how to make a pumpkin themed cake, but you could do anything like a bat, or a ghost. It's completely up to you!

 

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DIFFICULTY

Requires mixing and piping icing

TIME

About 2 hours

RECIPE RATING

Easy!

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INGREDIMENTS

Makes 12 cupcakes

4 ounces (115 grammes) white spelt flour

½ teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) cocoa powder
2 medium (US large) eggs

2 ounces (55 grammes, 60 millilitres) sunflower oil

2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar

2ounces (55 grammes) soft light brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

To decorate

Melted milk or dark chocolate, roughly 3 ounces (85 grammes)
12 ounces to 1 pound (340 to 455 grammes) buttercream icing, coloured orange, made using margarine for a dairy-free option

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FREE FROM

Dairy, nuts, wheat, yeast

CONTAINS

Spelt, eggs, refined sugar

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STORAGE

These keep for up to 2 weeks in an airtight container at room temperature.

Variations on a Theme: Surfing Toffee Tray Cake (Wheat Free)

Earlier this year I was appointed as the youth worker in my church, which means now I'm in charge of designing, maintaining and running the youth group for the young people in my church and the surrounding churches in our circuit. I host a youth group every second Monday, where we have tea and biscuits and do team activities.

This week we had a surfing themed evening because the leader of our church's surfing mission was giving a talk. To fit in with the evening, I made some sea themed cakes.

I also took this opportunity to try out my new recipe for 'fail safe' boiled fondant icing, and it worked a charm. However, the weather was very overcast so the sugar boiling took a few goes to stop crystallising.

Before I started my surfing themed cakes I thought about how I'd decorate them, then I remembered that the Natural Confection Company does sea creature gummies, which would make very quick and convenient sea themed decorations for the cakes. The whole fairy cake versus tray bake conundrum was not a challenge for me: I infinitely prefer tray bakes to fairy cakes. I've never been a fairy cakes person, honestly.

I decided to play it safe and simple with the flavours because they were for teens and tweens who tend to be fickle and unadventurous. I settled on a toffee flavoured sponge with a simple vanilla icing; I thought the blue colour and the little sea creatures would be the main things, as children tend to get excited more about interesting visual things than interesting flavour combinations.

The texture of the cake was spot on, and it was deliciously moist and tender. I cooked the tray cake at a slightly lower oven temperature to get it to rise more evenly and bulge less in the centre; it worked quite well.

Overall, I think this little venture worked out brilliantly. I often overlook the advantages of using premade sweeties for decoration, and I think I'll keep an eye out for themed sweeties any more.  The children really enjoyed them, anyway, which is the most important thing.

HOW TO MAKE

• Make one 7x9 inch (17x24 centimeter) toffee sponge cake following this recipe, using 4 ounces (115 grammes) of soft brown sugar and ½ an ounce (15 grammes) golden syrup in place of all the caster sugar. Bake as instructed.
• Once the cake is cooled completely, use either blue butter cream icing or blue pouring fondant to cover the top of the cake. Streak to make it look like waves.
• Arrange 16 sea creature sweets on the top in a grid, and allow to set completely for about 2 hours at room temperature.
• Cut the cake into 16 pieces using a bread knife in a long sawing motion.
• Store in an airtight container at room temperature.