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
- Place all of the ingredients for your cake together in your mixing bowl.
- Mix these together until the ingredients are fully combined. This usually takes around 30 seconds.
- Divide your mixture between 2 x 6 inch cake tins. I like to cover the inside of my tins in a thin layer of butter and dust with flour, before adding a circle of parchment to the bottom to stop the mixture from sticking.
- You then want to bake your cakes for around 45 minutes on the middle shelf at 180 degrees Celsius. For my oven I use a normal oven setting. I don't actually use my fan oven when baking cakes as it tends to bake the cakes quicker on the outside so you get this hard crusty shell and the mixture is not baked all the way through.
- After 45 minutes you can take a cocktail stick or bamboo skewer and push this into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean you know your cake is baked all the way through. You can then place your tins of a wire rack to let cool for a few minutes before turning them out, and allowing to fully cool.
- Whilst the cake is cooling you will need to sift your icing sugar into your mixing bowl. To this add the butter, flavouring, and milk.
- Then mix your buttercream on a medium speed. After around 5 minutes your buttercream will start to go creamy. You can then add any gel colouring depending on the theme of your cake.
- Once your cake has cooled you can level off the top and divide each layer into 2. Placing your buttercream between your layers, stack your cake.
- You then want to add a thin crumb coat of buttercream around the edge of your cake to lock in any loose crumbs. Place your cake into the fridge for around 30 minutes to allow the buttercream to firm up.
- You can then go in with the rest of your buttercream, adding a nice finish around the side of your cakes. This is then ready for any final decorations.
Also why not save the recipe for later and pin it to Pinterest
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