I am not an expert baker. Not even close. I’m just a mom who got sick of buying birthday cakes from a big box bakery that looked and tasted so… average. However, I do come from a long line of gifted home cooks. My Mamaw is an amazing baker, and I love for us to work together in the kitchen. After we struggled to produce Mickey Mouse cupcakes for my daughter’s birthday last year, I was ready to sign us up for professional help. Oh don’t get me wrong, they tasted divine, they just looked horrific. So we set out to take a Wilton cake decorating class at Michael’s, which I LOVED. Now I make lots of cake for my friends and family. I have even sold one! I have only had the time to take the first section of the four cake decorating classes offered, but would love to have the opportunity to take more.
The Wilton website is an amazing resource, and I refer to it often when baking, especially for recipes. It is in the links section of this blog. There are also tons of instructional cake decorating videos available on Youtube. My other favorite cake site for instruction is www.designmeacake.com. This link is also in the links section here on my blog. This is the site of Edna De La Cruz, an amazing cake artist. She’s so good she’s even been on Food Network’s “Challenge.” She has wonderful recipes that include instructional videos with great tips. I much prefer her buttercream recipe to Wilton’s because it contains actual butter instead of all shortening.
Whenever I set out to make a birthday cake I am reminded of this Disney gem from my childhood:
Poor Goofy. Baking is such an arduous process for him! Why can’t he just be dancing with the others? But alas, his cake turns out all right in the end.
I know what you’re thinking. When are we getting to the beer cake? Well folks, here it is:
My father makes home brewed beer as a pastime and this was his 50th birthday cake.
So, you’re gonna make a cake, eh? Well, where do you start? In this case my mom specifically requested that the cake look like a beer, so I started with that idea. After searching the Wilton website I find they did make a beer mug shaped cake pan called “Good Cheer,” but it has been long discontinued, and I didn’t have the time to scour eBay, so I decided to make my own shape by carving the sides of a sheet cake down to look like a pint glass. So here was my basic plan, bake a regular sheet cake (actually a half sheet in this case), carve it, ice it in a beer colored frosting, and then pipe foam and other details in white. I sketched a glass on a piece of paper the get a feel for the shape and then measured a real one to get the dimensions right between the top and the bottom.
Baking the actual cake part is very simple. I use a kicked-up box recipe I got from my Wilton teacher. Here are the ingredients:
A box of cake mix. I like Duncan Hines the best. I do NOT like Pillsbury. Just don’t get a mix that says “pudding in the mix.” *Don’t pay a lick of attention to the recipe on the box!*
A small box of pudding in a coordinating flavor. For example, if you are using white cake use vanilla pudding. You can get creative with your flavor combos here in a yummy way. I love to use butterscotch pudding mix with yellow cake.
4 eggs. If you want white cake use whites only. I use the whole egg for all other flavors.
1 cup of sour cream.
½ cup of water.
½ cup of vegetable oil.
Before you get to mixin’ you need to prep your pan. I am using a product by Wilton called cake release. It’s like greasing and flouring all in one step. You just brush it on with a pastry brush, covering the full pan, making sure to get your corners well coated.
After combining your ingredients pour your batter into your pan, making sure not to fill it more than half full. If your pan is more than half full going in it could over flow or rise above the edge making a round place. Basically, it could make your finished cake ugly, so don’t do it. Throw that last half cup of batter away if you have to. I bake my cake at a lower temperature, 325 for a longer time (50 minutes in the case of this cake). This helps it to not hump up or fall in the middle. Remember our dear friend Goofy? Another lesson we learned from him: You will WANT to look at the cake before it is done, but DO NOT LOOK AT THE CAKE! Every time you open the door you have the risk of the cake falling in the middle, and you reduce the heat in your oven.
When your cake comes out allow it to cool for a few minutes in the pan and then turn it out to a board for complete cooling. If you prepped your pan like I told you to you will end up with a beauty like this:
Now I set about making it look like a glass. Using a serrated knife I started cutting away diagonally at the sides. I ended up with this shape:
For my base frosting I used a recipe I had not used before, but really liked. It was easy and mixed like a standard buttercream. Here are the ingredients:
1/3 cup Shortening. I use Crisco sticks, it makes the measuring a snap.
1/3 cup Butter. Use REAL butter NOT margarine. Also, make sure it is super softened. If it is cold you will have lumpy frosting.
¾ cup Creamy Peanut Butter.
1 tsp. Vanilla. Again, use the real stuff. Imitation is just plain ole not as good.
1 tsp. Vanilla. Again, use the real stuff. Imitation is just plain ole not as good.
1 pound of powdered sugar.
4-6 Tablespoons of milk. Start with 4, then judge your consistency. If it’s too thick add the milk a tablespoon at a time until it is spreading consistency.
I added a little yellow color and some brown to darken it up and make it look more like a home brewed beer and less like a Michelob Ultra. These are Wilton cake colors:
Add them sparingly as a little goes a long way. Only dip a CLEAN toothpick or knife tip in the jar as to not contaminate the whole thing. Also, be careful with your clothing and other porous surfaces as they can be extremely staining, especially the darker colors.
Then I over beat the heck out of this frosting on purpose to give it a bubbly carbonated look:
The foam and piping details are just regular buttercream. I use this recipe: http://www.designmeacake.com/bcrec.html with one exception, I just use regular shortening, because I have been unable to find any high-ratio at my grocery store. Edna also has a great video on this page to walk you through the process. I mixed a portion of my plain buttercream with a couple teaspoons of piping gel to make it easy to make outlines and letters.
Homemade buttercream is easy and takes just a few basic ingredients. It really kicks the can frosting’s artificial booty. One ingredient worth seeking out at your craft store is meringue powder. I think its addition really helps to stiffen the icing and allow it to be piped more easily. However, if you or someone eating your cake has an egg allergy you need to skip it.
The most difficult part of the cake process for me is applying the base icing to the cake. The best tips that I have are to apply more icing than needed and remove little by little with your spatula as you go. Make sure you are pushing the icing and not the cake. After the basic icing is applied I piped the beer glass outline using a small #3 tip. I swirled the bag as I heavily piped with a larger #13 tip to make the foam, making sure to “spill” a little down the sides of the glass.
Pretzels were added as a border to add to the beer theme. I have to admit I didn't come up with that myself, but saw it on the Wilton message boards after searching for "beer cake."
Writing on a finished cake can be absolutely nerve racking. The first time you do it, it will most likely not look as good as you hoped. I recommend practicing on a practice board or paper plate first. You don’t want to end up on www.cakewrecks.com, so check your spelling first by writing your message down on a scrap of paper first.
So there you have it folks, my super basic cake tips! Remember when it comes to cake, even when it looks like crap, it can still taste wonderful, so keep on baking for practice, and share those tasty treats!
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