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by Barbara May
The Bridezilla Cake. It breathed fire, via a shot of rum in its mouth which was ignited. Look at the pink claws! The glint in its eye which says, "this was NOT on my registry!" The royal icing lace on its veil!
I created this cake for good friend's bridal shower, and I'm delighted to say that she really liked it. It's pretty easy to make, and it could easily be adapted for any other fire-breathing monsters you feel the need to create in cake. Just make sure the intended recipient is actually going to find it funny and not horribly insulting.
I began the night before the party with the veil... well, actually I procrastinated and began very early on the morning of the party. That wasn't ideal because the icing only had about 9 hours to dry, which isn't really enough. A full day is much safer. Thankfully, it worked out ok.
For the icing, I used the Wilton royal icing recipe, medium thickness. If you haven't used royal before, it dries very hard, almost like candy. It's great for gluing pieces together and for lacework like the veil. You'll also need a decorating tube, a small round decorating tip, and some wax paper. I used a #3 tip, but if you want it more delicate you could go smaller, keeping in mind that more delicate = more breakage. By medium thinkness I mean that you should be able to pipe it easily, but the line you pipe should hold its shape. When you're not using your bag, cover it with a damp kitchen towel to prevent the icing from hardening.
Once you have the icing, lay down a sheet of wax paper. You may want to tape it down so it doesn't shift. Start by drawing the outline of the shape you want. It's easier if you draw it on a piece of paper and put that under the wax paper so you can trace, but I was feeling lazy (plus it was 1:30 in the morning) so I did it freehand. Make sure that all the corners connect solidly -- I added a little extra dot to make it stronger. Try to keep the line as thick and even as you can, since thin spots are likely to break. Also, the bigger the piece, the more likely it is to break. In fact, it's a good idea to make two of any lacework piece just in case.
Once you have the outline in place, pipe overlapping squiggles inside of it. Don't make it a solid mass of icing, but make sure there's a fair amount of overlap so there aren't any long unsupported pieces. This should be done immediately, before the outline has a chance to dry. (If you want to add any edible glitter to make a sparkly veil, this is the time to do it.)
And that's it for the flat pieces that I placed on the tray just above Bridezilla's shoulders. Just leave it to dry for a day or so, and then gently remove the wax paper when you're ready to use it.
However, I decided that I wanted Bridezilla's headpiece and the long side pieces to curve. So I used the convex side of some flower formers to provide shape. Just lift up the wax paper and place it over the flower former -- again, this must be done immediately before the royal his time to dry. You'll need to tape the wax paper onto the former, or it'll just slide off. I think a paper towel roll cut lengthwise would work nicely for this.
Finally, on to the cake. I used the Megasaurus Pan from Wilton (PDF). I was thinking of using one of the Barney pans, but my local Michael's didn't carry them. The pan is size for one regular box of cake mix.
As you can see, it only sort of turned out. For one thing, I tried a new chocolate cake recipe from Joy of Cooking, and either I didn't do it right or it's not a good recipe, because it just didn't rise as much as I'd hoped. This meant that the edge of the shot glass was visible above the cake, which annoyed me. Also, it ripped a bit when I took it out of the pan. I'm told that greasing it generously with nice melty butter works better than the cooking spray I used, so I'll give that a try next time.
I unmolded the cake about 10 minutes after it came out of the oven, then wrapped it in plastic wrap and went to bed. In retrospect, I probably should have frozen it to help prevent it from going stale and to make the cutting easier.
It's now early on the morning of the party, and I'm decorating with a deadline! The first step was to torte the cake. I was hoping for 3 layers, but because of the less-than-stellar rise I settled for two. You can do this with a bread knife, but it's much easier with a cake leveler. You just adjust the little wire to the height you want and push it through the cake.
I then slid both layers (still together) onto the tray (last used for the Thorax Cake). To remove the top layer, I inverted a cookie sheet onto the cake, slid my hand between the layers, and flipped the top half over using my arm to support as much of the cake as possible. If it had been any bigger, I might have needed to slide a pizza peel in there for more support.
I then piped a dam of buttercream frosting around the edge of the cake to prevent the filling from leaking out the sides. I used a relatively large round tip for this, I think a 6 or an 8. For the filling, I used a sour cherry jam, but you could also use regular frosting, flavored ganache, custard, nutella, fresh berries... pretty much anything you want. The jam I used had big cherry pieces in it, so I ran it through the food processor to smooth it out, and then warmed it slightly in the microwave so it would spread better. A 10oz jar of jam was just enough to fill the layer.
After flipping the top layer back onto the bottom one, I went looking for the smallest shot glass in the house. To make the hole for the shot glass, invert it and center it over the mouth, and then just press in. I recommend snacking on the cake you remove from the hole.
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