novelty cakes

ghartley

I have recently started making novelty cakes for friends and family. I usually used a maderia cake with jam and buttercream filling. does anyone know what cakes would be great for covering in sugar paste??

MissFlitworth

Chocolate biscuit cake is good for novelty cakes because you can carve it & it's not going to be crushed under the weight of your sugarpaste. Have a look at the Bake my Cake facebook page, they have loads of pictures of novelty cakes they've made with chocolate biscuit cake. Kettlebells, microscopes, potatoes etc. and they look great

rubadub

+1, plus it doesn't go stale like normal cakes giving you more time to work if needed. e.g. you could make bits one day at a time and assemble them all on the last day. Also people can keep the cake after the event, without having to make pigs of themselves to finish it before it goes stale.

And I have yet to meet somebody who doesn't like chocolate biscuit cake.

I remember being in tears at my friends wedding, not at the church, but when I found out they blew all the money on fancy invitations which was meant pay for chocolate biscuit cake. :pac:

Toast4532

Fruit cake is another one that'd hold up.

I personally can't stand choc biscuit cake, it's very heavy and rich, it's just not for me.

Faith

Madeira, chocolate biscuit cake and fruit cake are the usual ones, I think. Possibly red velvet, but I couldn't be sure.

emzolita

carrot cake works well covered in sugarpaste, but not sure about it withstanding a tier on top x

phormium

Any cake will take a second tier if you dowel it for support. I find chocolate cake to be the best for carving, especially one made with real chocolate as opposed to cocoa. It makes for a firm close textured cake which can be carved, best done day after baking.

Chocolate biscuit cake is popular, I'd eat it if it was there but in my opinion it is just not cake, you may as well be eating a chocolate digestive. I like my cake to be cake.

rubadub

On one of these "my big gypsy wedding" type programs they were showing ridiculously big cakes. Turns out they were just styrofoam covered in icing, with maybe 1 edible layer. So that might be a trick if you have some small very intricate part of cake that needs to stick up in the air or something.

Rosy Posy

Nigella Lawson has a good buttermilk birthday cake recipe in How to be a Domestic Goddess that is very piable and can take the weight of lots of icing. It tastes just like generic sponge but I've made flavoured versions with orange rind or various essences.

tatumkelly

You can cover pretty much any cake in sugarpaste OP. I tend to avoid using it, as nobody really likes it.

All you need is a thin layer of buttercream/almond paste/apricot jam to stick the sugarpaste to the cake. This layer of icing is good, as it seals up any cracks in the cake, leaves a smooth finish and also tidies up any stray crumbs.

I made red velvet cake with a nutella buttercream as one tier of a wedding cake last week...it turned out great. Chocolate biscuit cake is great for the bottom tier... I use a mix of digestives, rich tea, jaffa cakes, cookies, mallows, crunchies, smarties and maltesers. Keep an eye out for biscuits and sweets on special offer in supermarkets or pound shops... you'll always get the ingredients cheaper this way.

Like someone else said, you can us pretty much any cake mixture. If you are stacking the cakes, just make use of dowels to support the weight.

phormium

tatumkelly wrote: »

You can cover pretty much any cake in sugarpaste OP. I tend to avoid using it, as nobody really likes it.

All you need is a thin layer of buttercream/almond paste/apricot jam to stick the sugarpaste to the cake.

I made red velvet cake with a nutella buttercream as one tier of a wedding cake last week...it turned out great. Chocolate biscuit cake is great for the bottom tier... I use a mix of digestives, rich tea, jaffa cakes, cookies, mallows, crunchies, smarties and maltesers

Sugarpaste is used for it's look more than it's taste, that's why people use it, not because they want to eat lots of it. While almond paste gives a good base to cover it is a very unpopular flavour, I never use it on sugarpasted cakes (other than fruit cake) and tbh I wouldn't eat it on any other flavour either, yuk.

I can't imagine jaffa cakes being good in chocolate biscuit cake, sounds odd to soak them in chocolate and butter.

tatumkelly

phormium wrote: »

Sugarpaste is used for it's look more than it's taste, that's why people use it, not because they want to eat lots of it. While almond paste gives a good base to cover it is a very unpopular flavour, I never use it on sugarpasted cakes (other than fruit cake) and tbh I wouldn't eat it on any other flavour either, yuk.

I can't imagine jaffa cakes being good in chocolate biscuit cake, sounds odd to soak them in chocolate and butter.

Maybe I should have been clearer... almond paste for fruit cake only. I'd assume since the OP bakes regularly, they would know that.

Jaffa cakes are actually great in biscuit cake. It gives a tangy orange bite, and when added last, they hold their shape really well, adding to both the colour and the texture.

phormium

Interesting! I love jaffa cakes, might try them in cbc, chocolate and orange are a great combination.

tatumkelly

Chop them up, add them last and stir them in gently as they're pretty fragile. They're yummy. Or mint Viscount biscuits are good too.

Seriously, I buy random ingredients that are on special offer... gives the biscuit cake a little twist, and keeps it from just being a block of chocolate with a few bikkies... (not that there's anything wrong with that!)