Its been a long time coming I know, but I finally have another tutorial-style post for you! Hooray!
Today boys and girls, we are going to learn how to make our very own Pinata Cake! Perfect for Mexican-themes parties or even Cinco de Mayo!
This cake came about after I was requested to make a cake for an upcoming 21st birthday fitting the following criteria:
- Not too big, something to serve between 30-40 people
- No fondant!
- Mexican themed
Besides that I was given a free licence style wise. Oh yeahhhhhhh!
Its not often I get to decorate a cake sans-fondant and using buttercream icing as a feature, so I was quite pleased with the opportunity. Something I hadn't considered though was just how much the weather would mess with me! Here in Australia we are still struggling through summer and week after week of temperatures in the mid-high 30s... not good for a cake covered in highly melt-able butter! Nevertheless I struggled on and the cake really held its own given the conditions.
And of course, it wouldn't be a pinata cake without being stuffed full of lollies and chocolates!
So, lets get to the good stuff!
You Will Need:
- 2 x square cakes (I used 30cm square chocolate cakes)
- Assorted lollies of your choice (I used about 2 packets... and ate the rest)
- Buttercream icing (in total I used almost 1kg of butter and almost 2kg of icing sugar)
- Your choice of food colourings
- A solid cake board
- Piping bags and a large petal piping tip
- A small amount of brown and white fondant (optional)
To start off, grab one of your cakes and decide the shape and size of your pinata! After some solid time spent on google images I settled on a classic horse shape (or is it a donkey? No, pretty sure its a horse...).
As you can see above, I cut my cake into three main sections. One large piece for the body, a smaller rectangle for the head and a remaining rectangle from which I would cut the legs and a small triangle for the ear.
Cut them out and put them into formation on your cake board and you should have something resembling this:
Measure the size of each piece and use these measurements to make the exact same cuts in your remaining square cake. Cover these pieces to stop them drying out and leave these set aside for now while you work on the first cake which will form the bottom layer.
Time to carve out some space in the cake for your lollies. Using a serrated knife, carefully cut about halfway into the body section of the cake, leaving about a 3cm border from the edge of the cake. Make sure you don't cut all the way through, you only want to carve out about half the depth of the cake layer!
I found that the easiest way to do this was to make a cut around the outline of the area I was removing with a knife and then using a fork like a chisel to lift it away
Now grab your buttercream icing and apply a thin crumb coating to the entire bottom layer. For those new to the baking game, a crumb coating is simply a very thin coat of icing which helps stick and loose crumbs to the cake and stops them getting into your final icing layers. Don't worry if it looks a little rough, you will be covering it in another layer of icing in the end.
Allow the cake to sit in a cool spot until the icing firms, or if the weather is warm or you need it done quickly, stick the cake in the fridge for 10min or so. When the crumb coating no longer feels soft to touch, take the cake and fill the middle cavity with lollies! Take more of your buttercream icing and cover the top of the cake pieces (this will form the middle layer of icing on the finished cake).
Halfway there! Now it's time to get the top layer on.
Grab the matching body piece of cake that you cut from the second cake and just like you did with the first one, carve out the middle. Again, be careful not to cut all the way through.
Carefully flip the piece and place on top of the lollies and base layer (so you are left with a nice flat surface). Take the other cuts made from the second cake and stick them on top of their corresponding body parts. Give the entire cake a quick crumb coating and set until firm.
Once the crumb coat is set, give the cake a proper coating of icing (mine was about 1-1 1/2cm thick). Try to get it as smooth and even as you can, though you are covering it in colourful 'ruffles' so it doesn't have to be perfect or hot watered or anything like that.
Time to get your ruffle on!
Take your remaining icing and divide it into 4 mixing bowls. Add whatever colouring you want to each, the brighter the better! Overall I ended up needing about 3-4 cups of each colour.
If you have four petal piping tips then this next step will be so much easier. If like me you only have one... here's where it gets a little frustrating. Decide what order you want your colours to go in and load up your piping bags with colouring (with only one piping tip I had to do it one bag at a time, emptying an excess from the bag when I finished a row, washing the tip and loading up the next colour...).
Starting at the bottom of the cake, make sure the thicker end of the petal tip is touching the cake and carefully use a back and forward movement with your hand to create a ruffled appearance across the feet and up the body. If you haven't used this piping technique before a quick google search will give you a ton of videos showing you how its done!
As you move up the cake, pipe each new row close enough to the one below so that it slightly overlaps.
I changed colours after every three rows but thats simply because I thought it looked the best given the dimensions of my cake.
If you find you icing getting too soft to pipe cleanly (Australia holla!) you can put it in the fridge for a couple of minutes to firm it up a little, but be careful not to leave it to long or you risk it getting grainy and too stiff (if this happens let it come to room temperature again and mix to try and get it smooth again).
Once the piping is done you can leave it as is or you can add a few final details to make it look just that bit better! I flattened a piece of brown fondantinto a little nose and cut out a circle of white fondant, painted it with some food colouring gels and stuck it on to give him an eye.
Here is a views of his cute butt....
And thats it!
You now have yourself a fun, colourful and delicoious treat to serve at your next Mexican-infused event!
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and if you have any questions or thoughts just hit me up in the comments section below!
XO
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