Elmo cake for kids party

Hello again!

Finally, I had a chance to something that I absolutely love! My cousin asked me to do a cake for her daughters birthday party with Elmo (sesame street). I was so happy to do a creative cake after a long time. Obviously, this is just a cake with Elmo if you want you can just take the recipe and decorate it how ever you want. I will first write the ingredients for the cake and below there is a list of what you need for the filling and for the topping.

Ingredients: (normal cake for 24 cm mold or high cake for 20 cm mold)

• 5 eggs
• 150 g of butter
• 3 1/2 dl of sugar
• 3 1/2 dl of flour 
• 3 teaspoons of baking powder
• (Breadcrumbs and oil)

Start by putting the butter in a small kettle and let it melt. After leave it to cool down (not until firm!).Take a cake mold and spread some oil or butter all around it. Take the breadcrumbs and make sure that it has stick evenly around the mold. (This ensures that the cake will not stick to the mold). Heat the oven to 180°C. 

Take the eggs and the sugar and mix. (with food processor or egg beater) Mix until you can draw a line on the mix and it stays there for a couple of seconds. Mix the flour and baking powder in an another bowl.  Take the egg mix and add half of the flour mix (through the sieve) and mix well but very carefully with a silicone spatula. For the rest flour and butter add them in small portions in turns. Check that the dough is evenly mixed. After pour it into the cake mold and put into the oven for 35-50 minutes (depending on the cake size) (immediately! The structure of the cake might fail if you leave it to rest for a while before oven).

After taking it out from the oven, take the mold off let it cool before cutting. If the cake is still warm while cutting it might break to pieces. You can fill the cake in basically anything so feel free to be creative. (under filling that I used)

So then to the filling. This filling is light so if you want you can fill it with cream cheese such as mascarpone or natural cream cheese. Also chocolate is okay.

Ingredients: (For two layers)

• 4 dl of cream
• 300g of quark
• 500 g of berries (Any)
• 3/4 dl of sugar
• 4 gelatine leaves 

Start by whipping the cream. It does not need to be hardly whipped. Add quark and mix well. Add berries and sugar. (remember to taste, here the amount of sugar is minimum if you use sour berries like I did). Take a couple of tablespoons of water and boil. After mix the gelatine in and pour into the filling and mix well. Fill the cake with the filling and put into the fridge. Let it set for a minimum of 6 hours. 

For the cake, I made with fondant icing and food coloring. So it needs sugar frosting under it (or whipped cream). If you are using marzipan this instruction is also valid. However, obviously, you can cover the cake with almost what ever from chocolate to whipped cream. 

Ingredients: (Frosting enough for one cake and fondant icing is enough for 20cm cake)

 For frosting:

• 125 g of soft butter
• 4 dl of powder sugar
• 1 tablespoon of water 

 For fondant icing:

• 750 g of sugar icing
• powder sugar
• Food coloring (Optional)*

I recommend the icing color (Pastaväri in Finnish)

So for the frosting make sure that the butter is soft (but not melted). Mix the butter and powder sugar well and add water. If the frosting is too soft add more powder sugar and if it too hard you can melt it a bit by putting in the microwave for a bit of time with low temperature. Make a thin and even layer of the frosting on top of the cake. (Spatula is a good working tool for this!) Put the cake into the fridge if it has to wait for the icing.

So after you have finished with the frosting take the sugar icing and make a layer of powder sugar on the working space (Also silicone working mat is useful!). If you want to color the icing add the food coloring into your icing and work it until the color is even. Start to roll the icing with a rolling pin (Marble or silicone one will work the best). Make sure that the icing is evenly thin (About 2,5 mm) and big enough. (should come well over the cake). While rolling the icing make sure it does not stick to the working surface. 

When the icing is rolled put your both hands carefully under the icing and put on top of the cake. Start to pull the corners softly with one hand and flatten the side of the cake with other. After the cake looks good to you cut the icing from the bottom of the cake with a sharp knife. And now it is your time to be creative. As you can see I made Elmo cake since my cousin asked for it. But you can finish the cake how ever you want.

Enjoy!