My ambitious cake project!

[AlpacaPicnic]

I am baking a secret cake for a friend for his birthday. I can't mention it too much IRL so I'm going to boast/panic about it here!

I am making a semi globe that when you cut into it, reveals the geological layers of the earth! Core, mantle etc... I've never done anything like it before - I must be mad!

The first cake is cooling as we speak...

Sounds amazing! Are they different types of cake or all sponge with food colouring?

Ooh sounds good, can you put a picture up when you are finished?

I used the same Madeira cake recipe for all three layers but it came out a little bit solid so I may try something with a little more moisture next time. It tastes ok though!
Today was a practice run to see how it worked - more practicing tomorrow!

Yesterdays came out ok but a smidge undercooked. I baked a small dome, then the middle dome containing the cooked small dome resting in the batter, then the biggest dome containing the earlier two domes iykwim. It was very tricky to tell when they were 'done'

So I'm using a slightly different way today... I'm trying a spongy recipe for the centre. Then I will cook the middle dome, using a madeira cake batter, but instead of putting the cake in the batter to cook together, I am going to try putting the dome pan in there instead to see if it bakes in the right shape, then I can sandwich the two cakes together with buttercream.

Oh no... More cake to eat!

Well, that was a slight failure... The cake rose, and the tin rose with it! Next time I shall position the oven trays so the the tin is held down by the one above...

I just cant imagine how difficult this is too do, very ambitious, i thought i had enough probs cooking my sponges now and again, 2 tomorrow night but they're only 8inch square, you must be going through an awful lot of ingredients bless you to get it right, i take my hat off to you. I cant offer any advice either cos i cant work out what its gonna look like.

Well, I am managing to eat all my practice so it's not all bad! I have signed up to do a baking evening class, I'm very keen on learning. I'd love to do it for a living but only if I didn't have to make a profit on it

OMG! How amazing. Can you inject some magma icing into the middle with an icing syringe??

The final batch of baking worked brilliantly!
The oven trays held the tins in place, so the thin layer of cake cooked all the way through. The colours were awesome and the decorating, while looking amateurish, was at least identifiable as to what I wanted it to look like.
I may try and post some pictures to show you what I mean...

Cant wait to see it Alpaca.

here are the pictures

Bumping --- and fishing for compliments as well ;-)

Just looked at the pictures and I think it's fantastic!

Sorry to hear that the recipient wasn't as thrilled as you would have hoped, I can only imagine that he's never tried to bake or decorate a cake, let alone done something as complicated as trying to get accurate geological layers!!

Thank you Rosina! I think maybe he was a bit embarrassed at the time of presentation because he did text me yesterday to say how much he enjoyed it ;-)

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Ooops i have had a busy day alpaca, sorry, what meant to say was it looked fab to me.

Thank you! I want to try and make a minion cake for DH next!

I made minion cupcakes recently but not a big figure cake, make sure you take a pic, would love to see it.