Well Summer is definitely here where I live in the UK! We are currently enjoying a bit of a heat wave which means it is the perfect weather for a summer party or BBQ. I hope wherever you are reading this the sun is shinning for you too.
So to celebrate the sunshine I thought I would make a cake that would be the perfect summer centerpiece. This watermelon themed cake is really simple to make and is decorated with buttercream and seeds made from black icing. Now it may not look exactly like a round watermelon, but you get the idea! The bit I love most about this cake, is that the sponge cake inside has been coloured to match the coloured buttercream on the outside, so when your guests see you cut into the cake this adds a bit of a surprise!
For the cake itself I actually used my vanilla sponge cake recipe, which I split into my 6 inch cake tins giving me 4 layers of delicious cake.
Colouring my Sponge Cake
I then coloured a quarter of the mixture with the Sugarflair extra green and the remaining three quarters with the Sugarflair extra red. The great thing about these gel colours is that the paste is highly concentrated, so you only need a small amount to get these vibrant colours which keep their colour when baked. I then coloured my buttercream with the same colours, and also added in the lighter green shade so that after filling the cake the outside would match perfectly. Oh and I added a lot of chocolate chips to the red layers to look like the watermelon seeds.
Recipe
The ingredients you will need to make this 6 inch cake are:
14oz/ 400g – Self Raising Flour
14oz/ 400g – Butter
14oz/ 400g – Caster Sugar
4 eggs
4tbsp – Vanilla Essence / Flavouring
4tbsp – Milk
I love how simple this cake is to make, but how it is so bright and vibrant and really has a summery feel. I really hope you will enjoy the tutorial and find it useful:
If you would like to know how I made the vanilla buttercream in this video then I have another video explaining the ingredients and how I made it (which can be seen here – vanilla Buttercream).
Tools I used
Below is a list of the tools I used to decorate the cake that you might find useful:
Turn Table: http://amzn.to/2CfVJUl
Wilton Icing Smoother: https://amzn.to/2KSRBii
Metal Scrapper Tool: http://amzn.to/2BNjf7v
Piping bags I use: http://amzn.to/2xqeDlM
Sugarflair Extra Green: https://amzn.to/2L5SwuZ
Sugarflair Extra Red: https://amzn.to/2KQQKyo
Vanilla Sponge Cake Recipe
Ingredients
Ingredients the Cake
- 12 oz Self Raising Flour (340g)
- 12 oz Room Temperature Butter or Baking Spread (340g)
- 12 oz Caster Sugar (340g)
- 4 eggs
- 2 tbsp Vanilla Essence / Flavouring
For the Buttercream
- 18 oz Icing Sugar (500g)
- 9 oz Block of Salted Butter (250g)
- 1 tbsp Vanilla Essence / Flavouring
- 2.5 tbsp Milk
Instructions
- Into a mixing bowl sift in the plain flour. Add the bicarbonate of soda, the ground cinnamon and the ground ginger and pop to one side.
- Into a saucepan add the butter, caster sugar, the brown sugar and the golden syrup and place this onto your hob until all the ingredients have melted together.
- You then want to add your melted ingredients to your dry ingredients in your mixing bowl. Using a wooden spoon or spatula mix this all together until it forms a dough. You can finish this off mixing it with your hands to make sure the ingredients are all combined.
- Take a piece of cling film / plastic wrap and push down your dough, coving it over. Place this into the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Whilst your dough is in the fridge you will need to print off and cut out your template pieces. You can find my template here.
- After 30 minutes take your dough out of the fridge. You can then dust your surface with a little flour and roll out your dough until its around 5mm in thickness. Then use a knife to cut out all of your shapes and place on a baking tray.
- Place your cut out shapes into a preheated oven set to 180 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes. You want the edges just to start changing colour.
- After 10 minutes you can take your shapes out of the oven to let them cool. I like to use my templates and carefully (they will be hot) cut around the template a second time, to cut off any areas that have spread in size. This will help your house fit together a little easier.
- You then have all the pieces for your gingerbread house. I like to use royal icing to stick my pieces together. Watch how to decorate your Gingerbread house in my tutorial above.
Also why not save the recipe for later and pin it to Pinterest
10 responses
This looks amazing! Can you please tell me what is the black ingredient you use on the finishing touch to make seeds.
Hi Jenny, I am so glad you like the cake. The black seeds were made from black icing / fondant. I hope this helps. Lynz
Hi there – I was wondering if you think this cake would freeze well if it needed to be made a week in advance before icing?
Hi,
I like your videos, watched a couple. I came to this as I’m looking to colour buttercream red, a nice satin red. I have some questions:
1) If you make it in advance, does the colour darken? Will Wilton Red work just as well?
2) Does it leave a bitter or strange aftertaste? I’ve read that some red gel colours make the buttercream taste bad, when added to make a bright red.
2) Where can you buy it from? (apart from amazon?)
3) Would this colour affect kids?
Hi, Buttercream will darken the longer you leave it, but for red I usually use the extra red by Sugarflair. It is alot more pigmented so you don’t need as much to get the colour. Also yes some gel colours the more you add it does make the buttercream taste slightly different. It is always hardest to get the really dark colours. In regards to buying the colours if you have a cake decorating shop near you or The Cake Decorating Company is great
https://prf.hn/l/K3j8Pgv
I made this for a friend’s 40th last week. We had a socially distanced, outdoor cinema viewing of Dirty Dancing, so the cake fitted perfectly with the theme. It was really yummy and great to try a different recipe as I’ve used the same sponge recipe for years. I will definitely make this again. Thank you.
A Dirty Dancing themed party sounds amazing. I am so glad the tutorial was helpful and you liked the recipe.
Hi! I’m planning to make this watermelon cake for my daughter’s TWOtti Frutti themed birthday.
1) Do you recommend using self-rising vs. cake flour vs. all purpose flour?
2) Should the butter be salted or unsalted?
3) Does it make a difference if the eggs are room temperate as well as the butter for this recipe?
Thank you! Stay safe and well!
Hi Jennifer, I am so glad you like the watermelon cake. To answer your questions, I always use self raising flour. If you use all purpose, plain or cake flour you will need to add a raising agent. Self raising flour already has it added in, but you will need to add baking powder. Add 2 tsp’s of baking powder to each 150g/6oz of plain flour. In regards to the butter I always use salted, but it is entirely down to personal choice. Or you could also use a cake spread like stork for hte cake mixture (always use real butter for buttercream). For the butter you will need this to be room temperature, but for eggs I always use mine from the fridge. I hope that helps x