|
Painter's-Palette-Shaped Cake
Ingredients:
Cake-Shaping Strip (from 6 sushi-mat segments)
3 extra sushi-mat segments
Heavy-duty aluminum foil
Sheet pan
Prepared cake batter (see the Fruit-on-the-Bottom Cake recipe or use about 2 boxes of cake mix)
Icing (about 2 16-oz. containers of white icing and 1/2 of a 16-oz. container of chocolate icing)
Prepared or homemade jam for the "paints" (or just dye some more icing).
Instructions:
1. Line a sheet pan with 2 slightly overlapping sheets of aluminum foil. Shape the Cake-Shaping Strip into a shape of a painter's palette. Exaggerate the spatial features, as they'll seem smaller after you unwrap and ice the cake. Wrap the bottom foil layer around the strip, cutting the foil where needed. Press small balls of foil along the bottom outer perimeter wherever you think that the batter might leak due (e.g., where you tore the foil).
2. Roll up several 3 sushi-mat segments. Wrap the rolled sushi-mat segments in another piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Crumple up the top of the wrapped foil. Make four tears in the bottom of the foil. These flaps will help prevent cake batter from leaking into the hole. Put the wrapped sushi mats where you'd like the palette's hole to be and press the flaps down.
3. Prepare your cake batter. Spray the strip, foil sheet and "hole" with cooking spray. Pour the cake batter into the prepared "pan" and bake until done. Let the cake cool.
4. Cut away any cake batter that leaked through the strip. Carefully remove the Cake-Shaping Strip. Insert the flat edge of a table knife between the strip and the cake if this helps.
5. Cut away the crumpled up foil on top of the hole's rolled sushi-mat segments. Remove the sushi-mat segments so that you are left with just a partial layer of foil next to the cake.
6. If your cake is not sticking to the bottom foil layer, move it to your serving tray. Otherwise (e.g., if you are using the fruit-at the-bottom cake recipe), put another cookie sheet over the cake, and flip the whole cake over. Carefully peel off the bottom foil layer and the foil remaining in the hole (and its flaps). Place your serving tray on top of the cake, and flip it back over.
7. Apply a thin coat of white icing (a "crumb coat") and let that dry. Meanwhile, take some store-bought or homemade white and chocolate icing, and combine them to make several different shades of brown. The chocolate icing itself can serve as one shade.
8. After the crumb coat is dry, frost the sides of your cake with one of the lighter brown icings. Then drop heaping tablespoons of the various brown icings onto your cake. Using an icing spatula, smear the brown frostings together. Don't spend too much time smoothing out your frosting. Otherwise, the frosting will become a uniform color and won't look like wood.
9. Drop two tablespoons of store-bought or homemade jams onto the frosted to cake to act as paint splotches. To make your own jam, simmer pureed fruit and a couple of tablespoons of sugar until it is thick (about 5 minutes).
| 
