A year after baking cupcakes for the very first time, I decided it was time to have a go at a full-sized cake. Having used Dan’s sister’s birthday as a reason for baking for the very first time, I thought the occasion, a year on, called for a bigger and better one!
Being very new to baking myself everything looks incredibly difficult to create and extremely impressive to me. So, I thought I would set myself a little challenge and rather than just bake a cake, I would bake a Piñata Cake.
This seemingly normal looking sponge cake, when cut into, reveals an exciting surprise – it is full of sweets! And, as it turned out, it was much easier to make than I first thought! So, if you fancy having a go yourself, here’s how:
Ingredients
For the cake:
200g butter
200g caster sugar
4 medium eggs
2tsp vanilla extract
200g self raising flour
1tsp baking powder
For the buttercream:
Icing sugar
175g butter
1tsp vanilla extract
Food colouring
To decorate and fill:
To fill the cake I used a mixture of crispy and original M&M’s – but the possibilities are endless. Haribo, skittles, fresh fruit or a variety of chocolates all work well. I then sprinkled blue and pink ‘glimmer’ cake decorations over the top.
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180ºC and line 2 x 21cm cake tins with greaseproof paper.
- Gradually add all your ingredients into a large mixing bowl, whisking as you go.
- Once combined – pour into the cake tins, ensuring they are as even as possible.
- Bake for 20 – 25 minutes
- Turn out onto a wire rack and choose which will be the base – then turn this upside down and leave to cool. Tip: make sure the cake is completely cool before adding the sweetie centre to avoid them melting!
- Whilst the base is cooling you can make the buttercream by whisking together the icing sugar, butter and vanilla extract.
- Turn the top cake upside down and mark out a circle, do the same on the base and then scoop out the centre. Tip: be careful not to cut all the way through the cake, you only want to go about half way down.
- Cover the edge of the circles with buttercream and add in your filling of choice to the base.
- Once you are happy there is enough filling, put the top cake on like a lid and push them firmly together.
- Coat the entire cake in a light layer of buttercream and leave to one side.
- Add food colouring to your buttercream and then spread it evenly across the cake. (You could also separate several colours into piping bags, if you wish, to create a pattern on your cake.)
- Decorate the top of your finished cake.
Although a piñata is usually hit with a bat until the sweets are revealed, I would advise cutting into this one with a knife to reveal the sweet surprise!
What a great idea!