“Stained Glass” Birthday Cake

You may well be forgiven for believing that the only interest this site has is for needlework, carving, sculpting, painting or photography, yet there is another aspect to MadeStuff, stuff that we all make all the time, i.e. food!  Of course I’m not about to reproduce every recipe I ever complete on here, after-all, sausage and mash really isn’t that exciting … despite my exciting twist that I do with the potatoes … and the onions are to die for?!!!

Anyway, I was asked by a good friend if I would prepare a cake for his wife’s surprise birthday party.  So faced with a challange I thought I’d do my best to meet if not exceed expectations … people still talk about my cheesecake, although that’s for another day.

The cake itself was rather basic consisting of two elements, a basic 11″ square sponge part and a 20cm round white chocolate mud cake.

The recipe for the sponge cake is:

• 700g / 1.5lb butter
• 700g / 1.5lb caster sugar
• 700g / 1.5lb self-raising flour
• 12 medium eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F / Gas Mark 4 – adjust accordingly for fan ovens (I put mine in at about 160C).
2. Lightly butter and line the base of your cake tin with greaseproof paper.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until smooth and pale in colour … I’m inclined to use a food processor for this part as I don’t have muscles like a shot putter!
4. Gradually beat in your eggs … I strongly recommend you do this by hand unless you have a proper mixer designed to do this sort of task, something like a big old Kenwood would do the job.  Otherwise it’s time to build some muscles and use your wooden spoon.
5. Sift the flour into your mixture a little at a time before turning out into your cake tin and levelling the mixture off with your spoon or a palette knife.
6. Bake for about 90 minutes, if your prone to burning your cakes like me my oven is then place some tinfoil loosely over the cake allowing space for it to rise.  Check and turn the cake in the oven after 60 minutes (don’t slam the door) and adjust temperature if you think it might be about to start burning.
7. When you think it’s ready, skewer the cake with a knife (or a skewer, but honestly, who owns one?), if it comes out clean it’s done. If not, pap it back in for another 10 minutes and repeat.

Once cooked, I allowed the cake to cool for an hour or so in the tin before turning onto a wire rack and allowed it to settle over night.

Meanwhile, I prepared the white chocolate mud cake with ganache (chocolate icing ;-) ) coating following this recipe:

• 250g unsalted butter
• 150g white chocolate
• 440g caster sugar
• 250ml milk
• 225g plain flour
• 75g  self-raising flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence/extract/flavouring
• 2 eggs lightly beaten

white chocolate ganache

• 125ml double cream
• 300g white chocolate
• icing sugar to thicken

1. Grease a deep 20cm round cake tin with butter and line the base with greaseproof paper.
2. Heat butter, chocolate, sugar and milk together in a saucepan at a low heat to melt the chocolate and combine ingredients without boiling.
3. Pour mixture into a large bowl and leave to cool for 15 – 30 minutes … seriously, you must do this!
4. Preheat your oven to 160C / 325F / Gas Mark 4 … adjust fan ovens accordingly, I run mine at 140-150C for this.
5. Whisk the sifted flours into your mixture then stir in the vanilla and the lightly beaten eggs (if you didn’t cool your mixture you now have something akin to scrambled eggs … you were warned!)
6. Pour mixture into your cake tin and bake for about an hour, if your temperature’s too high it’ll burn, keep an eye on it and if it appears to be burning turn the temperature down a tad and loosely cover with foil.
7. After an hour’s passed, cover cake with foil and bake for another 45minutes … the cake will look like it’s about to burn, but be bold my friend.  Be Bold!
8. Test the cake to see if it’s ready by skewering as before, if it’s not ready give it another 10 minutes and repeat.
9. Stand cake in pan for 30minutes, before turning out onto wire rack to cool (I left mine overnight for decorating the following day).

The ganache is relatively simple although getting the consistency can be a nuisance.

1. Put your chocolate and cream in a pan and gently heat until the chocolate has melted and the mixture has a smooth and creamy texture … the colour can be off putting, an off white/yellow colour.  We’ll fix that in a moment ;)
2. Cover your mixture and refrigerate for 30minutes.
3. You may notice that the mixture remains runny, although it should thicken as it cools … although I think I’d still be waiting if that was always the case.  The mixture should be a spreadable paste, if yours isn’t add small quantities of icing sugar beating furiously until you achieve something that isn’t at all unlike well beaten and softened butter … the icing sugar should also whiten the mixture substantially.
4. Using a bread knife cut the top off your mud cake if it is domed (or trim off any burnt bits), so that you have a cake as flat on the top as it is the bottom.
5. Spread the mixture over your mud cake.

You should now have two cakes, one bare spongecake awaiting filling and icing, the other an effectively complete mud cake.  At this point I set the mud cake aside and concentrated on the spongecake.

For decorating the sponge cake I used:

• Shop bought rollable icing (cheating I know, bu’hey what can you do!)
• Shop bought writing icing (it comes in little tubes)
• Raspberry jam
• Apricot jam
• 140g / 5 oz butter
• 280g / 10 oz icing sugar

1. Trim off any burnt edges and remove the top if it has domed … we had the off cust with custard, very tastey!
2. I cut the cake into quarters before arranging on my cake base and using the base of my 20cm cake tin to identify the segments to be removed, I marked these out by scoring with a knife before cutting them out properly … the picture below should give you a clue.
3. I then cut each quarter lengthwise to create four ‘sandwiches’ and filled these with raspberry jam and a basic butter icing made by beating the butter until soft and then beating in the icing sugar (again I recommend a food processor!).
4. Taking one quarter at a time I rolled out sufficient icing to cover each, the apricot jam was warmed in the microwave before being pasted onto the sponge cake to act as a gluing agent … how you properly wrap the icing onto the cake is up to you, although I do recommend patience!
5. Your quarter should now be iced and you can arrange your five parts (1 mud cake and 4 sponge cakes) onto your cake base.
6. I used the writing icing to decorate, obviously your design is up to you.

For decorating the mud cake with the stained glass design I used:

• shop bought rollable icing
• black writing icing
• red / blue / yellow food colouring
• 1 stained glass design courtesy of stained glass artist extraordinaire Foley Stained Glass … the design I actually used was taken from here, or at least one corner of it!

1. The icing was rolled out to about 5mm before using the base of the 20cm cake tin to cut a circle.
2. I used the writing icing to imitate the leading from the window on the cake, obviously you shouldn’t use real lead as that would just be a little bit silly … madness and death may ensue … no really I mean it, heavy metals and food do not a happy bunny make.
3. The colours were then simply mixed and applied onto the cake with a clean brush, although I recommend testing the colours on an off cut of icing before applying to your cake.

Eventually you should have something like this … least I did!

The flowers at the bottom are inspired by Jolene’s sown trees and flowers that she has been doing recently, and as I’ve said the central image is based on the work of Fiona Foley of Foley Stained Glass fame and for whom this was for.

HAPPY [BELATED] BIRTHDAY FIONA!

Tags: abstract, art, baking, bird, birthday cake, cake, craft, culinary art, handmade, happy birthday