Gymnast Cake

A while back a friend asked me to make a cake for her mother. No occasion. Her Mom caters and does cakes for a living. She once mentioned how no one ever made her a cake. That was where I entered. It was a simple cake: lemon cake with raspberry mousse filling and lemon Swiss buttercream. I piped little white daisies all around the yellow iced cake. Very simple, very pretty.

Another friend stopped by that house and had a piece of cake. I got a text from her the next day asking if I would do her daughter's birthday cake. She selected a cake based on the theme of the party. I got to planning and was about to buy the few things I needed when I got a text saying the theme of the party had changed. It was now a gymnastics party. The following cake is what they wanted. I had tons of fun doing it. *please note, I am obviously not a professional so please don't judge me too harshly!! Also, all pictures were taken with a cell phone camera, hence the crap-tastic quality.

WTF is with that right side? It looks bulgy! There was no bulge in person, I assure you.

Gymnast is made out of fondant. Hair was done using a...wait for it...garlic press. Bahahaha! I know they make fondant/clay extruders, but my garlic press worked perfectly!

Marshmallow fondant accents

King Cake is SOOOO Last Year!

The How To:

So, the cake was a huge hit and was yummy too! The cake part was SUPER easy but made a huge impact once cut.

I took two boxed white cake mixes and mixed them up according to package directions with the addition of two boxes of white chocolate flavored pudding.

Once mixed up, I divided the batter into three bowls and colored them in the traditional Mardi Gras colors of purple, gold, and green. I baked three 9 inch cakes. Cool and trim the tops. Now let's make the almond cream filling!

The ingredients:

1 Cup half and half

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

1/3 Cup sugar

1/4 Cup all purpose flour

2 large eggs

1/2 of a 7 oz. roll almond paste, diced

6 ounces white chocolate

2 T unsalted butter

2/3 Cup heavy whipping cream

Mmmmmm, vanilla beans. They came two per package so I took the other bean and popped it in my coffee sugar canister. Yum! Vanilla sugar for my coffee! The Dude even noticed the slight vanilla-y flavor.

Pour half and half into medium saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean, add them and the bean. Bring to a simmer. Remove from heat, steep 15 mins. Combine sugar and flour in bowl. Whisk in eggs, then warm half and half mixture; return to pan. Add almond paste. Whisk over med. heat until paste dissolves (10-ish minutes). Remove from heat. Add white chocolate and butter, whisking until smooth.

Press plastic wrap onto custard (we don't want a skin, yuck!). Chill for a few hours (the custard, not you).
Remove the vanilla bean and toss it. Beat the cream to stiff peaks (we need it stiff so it can withstand the weight of the cakes). Fold the whipped cream into custard. Cover and chill.
For the icing, I made a cream cheese frosting. I added about 3/4 Cup of the almond cream into it to give it a little kick of almond.
I placed the green cake layer on a cake board and piped a ring of frosting around the cake to act as a kind of dam, then spread the almond cream on.
On top of that, I placed the yellow cake layer. I did the frosting ring again, but this time spread raspberry preserves. I would say I used about a cup.

Mmmmmm, layers!

I took a bit of the (still) white frosting and did a crumb coat on the cake.

I colored most of the frosting a deep golden yellow with a small amount colored purple and gold. I used a large star tip to pipe purple rosettes and green....ummm....I don't know what you'd call those.

Not sure if you noticed this part, but look at that last picture. Look to the left of the cut. Oh yes, those are little finger swipes, courtesy of my little munchkins.