s turned 7! Gosh, almost not a little kid any more. His birthday fell on a Sunday, so we asked him what he would most like to do that day... He said he wanted to play with his friends, so we ended up inviting the 12 boys from his school class over for a party! It was all about gaming this year - purchased lots of gaming themed paper cups, plates, decorations etc. Even managed a Plants (vs Zombies) themed garden treasure hunt... And s requested a Peashooter (from PvZ) for his birthday cake... And mango (again). Yet another challenge!
Ever since s was big enough to make a birthday cake request, he has requested mango cake. So I have had a little bit of practice. But haven't been completely happy with my mango cake results so far. Last year's cake was nice and mango-y, but rather too dense. It might have been due to the baking powder being a bit old, or maybe I didn't beat enough air into the mix... or maybe it was just the recipe, with no eggs and mango puree. Last year I didn't really need to sculpt, so the texture and composition of the cake could be all about taste...But this year I wanted to sculpt, and hoped to find a cake with a better texture for sculpting / in general. I decided freeze dried mango powder was a key ingredient, purchased some, and then started hunting far and wide for the right recipe. I consulted our departmental cake whiz at work - who also happens to be Filipino (according to the East Asians at work, the Philippines is the source of the best mangoes in the world - I want to try!), and he agreed about the freeze dried mango powder and made some helpful suggestions... But it was not easy to find a recipe with mango powder in the actual cake! Nevertheless, buoyed by the moral support, and widening my search to include other freeze dried fruit powders, I found a few options... I was seriously considering this one when I noticed the author - Liz from 'Is It Cake?'! s and I love watching that show - and she was memorably brilliant - and it was the first time I noticed a cake recipe specifically saying it was good for carving! I was sold.
The only downside of that recipe was that it used egg whites but not yolks (which I thought might have the upside of making it less dense). So I needed to find something to do with the yolks. I decided to crack open a big can of mango puree and try out a mango curd. I wasn't sure if I'd find a place for it in the cake (in the end I didn't) - and I am not sure if I love it, the eggs and butter kind of distract from the mango intensity. But still, it was a pretty good use of egg yolks. The recipe for the curd is here.
I wanted to use fondant for the outside, and figured I'd need a mango buttercream (with more freeze dried mango powder) for sticking and layering. Thought it might be smart to follow a recipe - went with this one.
Heat the oven to 350ºF/176ºC. Grease and line the cake tins.
Beat the butter in a medium bowl until smooth and shiny. Gradually sprinkle in the sugar and beat until the mixture is fluffy and almost white. Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl (I wasn't sure whether to do this, so I beat them until loose peaks - really didn't want a super dense cake again!). Add the egg whites approximately two at a time, beating to mix in between.
Whisk the flour, mango powder, baking powder, bicarb, salt, vanilla and lime zest in a medium bowl. Combine the milk, oil, and food colourings in a separate bowl. Add about a third of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, followed immediately by about a third of the milk mixture, and mix until ingredients are almost incorporated into the batter. Repeat this process 2 more times, until the batter appears blended. Divide the batter between the prepared pans, aiming for a similar batter height in each. Smooth the tops.
Bake cakes until they feel firm in the centre and a skewer comes out clean, about 35-40 min. Transfer tins to a wire rack and let cool for 10 min. Invert cakes onto the rack and pop cakes out of tins. Cool completely before assembling and icing.
To make the buttercream:
Beat the butter until creamy and light in colour. Add milk and mango powder and beat until fully combined. Add the icing sugar one cup at a time and mix. Add pinch of salt and mix until well combined.
To assemble:
(Notes: To make a base for the cake, I covered a large flat bamboo chopping board with silver foil. I decided to go for a semi-3D shape - a lying-down peashooter - since a fully 3D standing-up one seemed like a bit tooo much of a challenge. I couldn't bring myself to buy both black and white fondant just for a few little bits, so I bought white and mixed a bit of it with a LOT of black gel food colouring to make some black.)
Cut the cooled cakes into the peashooter shape and put together. I got most of its head out of the round cake, and made the rest of it by cutting and shaping the remaining pieces of that one and the loaf cake. Use the buttercream as a glue to layer up the cake where needed.
When the shape looks right, cover the cake in buttercream and smooth it out as much as possible.
Roll out the fondant icing (if it sticks to your surface, roll it on/between clingfilm). When it is the right thickness (c. 2 mm?) and size, lift it gently over your cake and smooth it into place. I used a lighter green for the head of the peashooter, and a darker green for its stalk and leaves - using one piece to cover the head, one to cover the base leaves and stalk, and one to cover the leaf at the back of the head. Press all around the base and bring together as smoothly as possible.
Roll a few extra pieces of green fondant into long sausage shapes to make the parts linking the leaves and head; and to make the outline of its shooting mouthpart. Press into place.
Roll out the black fondant to make the inside of the shooting mouthpart and to make the eyes. Press into place.
Make small flat discs of white fondant and press into place to finish the eyes.
Press the fondant gently but firmly with a blunt thinnish edge (I used the edge of a rubber spatula), to make the leaf veins and divisions between leaves and stem.
Dust white shimmer powder to make highlights on the head.
If you have sufficient suitable remaining cake, buttercream and fondant, you could shape and cover some peas! About the same size as the shooting mouth makes sense... I did this thinking perhaps s could have some teaser cake in the morning before the party - in the end we didn't have time for this but it was still kind of nice to have them for sharing.
We decided not to show the finished cake to s until we revealed it at his birthday party, with the candles and singing, in front of all the boys! I was pretty happy with it but also a bit nervous... My heart literally leapt when, as soon as he saw it, he said: 'it's good mummy'! Praise indeed - esp as he can be a bit of a wee hater...
The cake was a really nice texture and tasted good but I didn't really find it mango-y enough. Perhaps I'll try a different recipe next time (if there is another mango cake request!) - maybe this one.
The buttercream was not the right texture. I think I pitched in too much extra mango powder - just noticed the recipe starts with whole freeze dried rasps, I'm sure I measured the same amount of powder by volume, which will have been way more! It wasn't really sticky enough for slathering, and it stressed me out a bit as I couldn't get it to stick to the cake very well. Next time a different recipe (or just stick to the one given...).
I can see the cake is a bit bumpy in places - if the buttercream had been a better texture, I can see it would have been important to make as smooth a surface as possible before putting the fondant over.
I had to mix a lottt of black food colouring into the white fondant to make it black enough - and then it was a bit too sticky for good rolling - so those bits were tricky. I might be tempted to buy black as well as white for optimal results...
I think the mouthpart could have been a bit better - although I am not certain how.
The white shimmer seemed like a good idea for the highlighting, and I kind of like it, but I don't think it is completely necessary. Also it doesn't look that different from just flour or icing sugar or cornstarch or so - not so shimmery - maybe one of those white powders would have been OK instead?
