silverblue94 replied to your photo âSome quick and easy cocoa cakes!â
How are they quick an easy??
Okay, so! I understand how these might look a little intimidating at first glance, BUT! Iâm gonna break them down for you, because--with the possible exception of the handle, which Iâll get to--this is actually a GREAT beginner cake! Letâs take another look at it:
So, step one! The first thing youâre going to do is base ice your cake. I did mine in a thick fudge icing, but you can do whatever youâd prefer--buttercream, cream cheese, whipped cream, etc, it doesnât matter. The important thing is that you get it on the cake and somewhat smooth. I use an offset spatula and a scraper to ice my cakes. The spatula is just to get the icing on the cake and I use the scraper to smooth it out. If you have neither of these things, thatâs fine. Iâve iced a cake with a butter knife before and while itâs not great? It does work.
Step one, oh so easy!Â
Step two! Pick whatever colors bring you bliss, dye your buttercream--and you do want buttercream for this, itâs the easiest to color--and get ready to pipe dots! Donât have a piping bag? Donât have piping tips? NO PROBLEM! Grab a ziplock bag, dump your frosting into it, cut off one of the corners of the bag, instant homemade piping bag, youâre ready to go! This isnât fancy piping work. You are literally just piping dots around the top and bottom of your cake. They can be as big or as small as youâd like. They can vary in size if you think that would look cool. They donât have to be smooth, they donât have to be perfect, they just have to be dots.
Step three! Still got your ziplock baggie? Does it have white frosting in it? Good. Cut your hole a little bigger this time and, starting from the outer edge of your cake, just inside the barrier created by your lovely dots, pipe a nice, thick, lumpy line spiraling in toward the center of your cake until the top is covered. Plop some marshmallows on top.
Which brings us to step four: the handle. This is the only step that might give you any trouble, because piping liquids can be a pain and I made them from melted chocolate. In a perfect world, I would have done them from tempered chocolate since Iâm a Fancy Bitch like that, but tempering isnât something we do at work, because of Reasons like it being time consuming, really easy to mess up, and requiring much more expensive chocolate than we keep in stock. We use dipping chocolate instead. You could also use candy melts, which come in a wide range of colors, if youâre feeling particularly sassy. So, to do the handle Iâd suggest grabbing some parchment paper, though wax paper or aluminum foil could work in a pinch. If you donât want to freehand the handles like I did, take a dark sharpie and draw what you want them to look like directly on the paper. Flip the paper over; youâll still be able to see what you drew and you wonât get any marker on the chocolate. Melt your chocolate or candies as directed on the packaging, pour it into another ziplock piping bag, cut a SMALL hole--at least to start until you feel comfortable with a bigger one--and fill in your handle templates. They should dry within a few minutes and peel right off your parchment paper.
If that sounds like too much trouble to you, an alternative would be buying some candy canes and sticking one on the side of the cake to serve as a handle instead. Super cute and then you have candy canes!
And there you have it! Youâve made an adorable mug cake of your very own, which you can promptly faceplant into and enjoy! :D
