So I finished the Succulent cake all in a days work.
I woke up super early and figured I would just get straight into it, as I seem to start my days off. Always the first kid up at the sleepovers... Such is life.
Anyway so I thought I would take some photos for you and give you a recipe.
Turns out I took enough photos and have enough info to make a How To guide for this cake. So that is what I will do.
Firstly this is a photo of the finished product:
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| Succulent Wedding Cake |
For this cake the bride asked for a hummingbird cake, due to the fact she is sick of chocolate cake, fruit cake and anything else heavy and rich. So at this request I was a bit excited because I love anything to do with desserts and fruit.
So here the instructions!
First of all you need to make the cake. This takes an hour to bake so be aware of that if you have time restrictions, or even better make it the day before. This can help keep the crumb to a minimum when cutting as well.
This is the recipe I used, I made this recipe two times to give the height of this cake which has four layers altogether. Each cake is sliced in half before constructing. Alternatively if you have two cake tins you can double this recipe and split it between the two tins and bake together.
440g can crushed pineapple
1 cup mashed ripe banana
60mL of fresh passionfruit pulp
215g caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly whisked
150g unsalted butter, melted
265g self-raising flour
2 teaspoons on cinnamon
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease or line a 20cm round cake tin.
Combine pineapple, banana, passion fruit and sugar together in large bowl and mix.
Add the eggs and the butter and mix until combined, add the flour and cinnamon and stir until there are no lumps, you can use a whisk for this it is much easier.
Pour into tin and place in oven for 1hr and 10 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and let stand in tins for about 5 minutes.
Remove cakes from tins and turn onto wire rack. Let cool completely.
Once the cakes are cooled, cut them in half horizontally with a serrated knife, the longer the better! It is much easier to slice a cake in half with a longer bread knife then a shorter one.
To do this I usually slice a very shallow line all the way around the cake to mark it, holding the serrated knife parallel to the bench at all times to ensure it is straight, then I go along the same line again and slice into the cake while turning it at the same time. This usually gives me pretty even slices.
Before removing the layers cut a notch in the side of the cake as you can see in the images below. This will allow you to later place the layers back together in the exact same spots to ensure it stays as flat as possible.
I have also turned the cakes upside down which will give me a sharper edge to later work with when masking it. If any of your layers crack of break, don't be alarmed. This layer will go in the middle of the cake. Try not to use cracked layers for the bottom or the top.
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| Cakes ready for decorating |
Once cooled, I put my cakes in the fridge to help them set just a bit more before masking.
Now I make the Italian Vanilla Butter Cream, traditionally it is cream cheese icing, but I quite like butter cream and find it easier to mask with.
400g Sugar
100g Water
1 Vanilla Bean
200g Egg Whites
625g Unsalted Butter
Firstly place the sugar and water in a small saucepan.
Place egg whites in a mixer, for this recipe you will need a stand mixer.
Scrape out the vanilla beans from the pod and add these to the egg with a couple of drops of lemon juice.
Chop the butter up into small pieces, and set aside.
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| Butter needs to me small so it can soften up before you add it to the egg whites |
Now turn the sugar and water on to high heat, cook until 110 degrees Celsius. Turn your egg whites on to full speed and let the sugar continue to cook until 116-118 degrees Celsius. By this time your egg whites should have come to a high volume and be at soft peak. If they need a little longer don't be alarmed, just turn off the sugar syrup and wait until the eggs are ready. This is an important step.
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| Egg whites should look like this, soft peak. |
When the eggs are ready carefully pour the sugar syrup in while the eggs are whisking at full speed, drizzle this down the side of the mixing bowl, if it touches the whisk it tends to fly off and hit the edges of the bowl and set which will later give you lumps throughout the butter cream.
Let this mix on high speed, for a while. It may take a long time but it needs to cool down, you will notice it becoming thicker and stickier as it cools.
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| Cooled and ready for butter |
Once it is cooled make sure your butter is not melted but very soft to the touch.
Add half the butter and whisk the butter in at high speed until just combined, add rest of butter and whisk this in until it looks lighter and holds its shape when stopped. If you find that it is very runny, keep the mix in the mixing bowl and place this in the fridge for about 5 minutes, whisk again. If still runny continue those steps until it becomes light and fluffy. Be careful because once butter cream has chilled too far it can split and have lumps throughout it.
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| Once the butter has been added it should look like this |
Ok so now we are ready to prepare the succulents and finish the cake off.
Firstly I got the succulents ready, I did this while I was waiting for the egg whites and sugar syrup to cool down to save time.
You will need:
Florist tape
Succulents, try to get a couple of different sizes
Wire, I used 16g
Wire cutters
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| Succulents I bought from Bunnings |
I bought these particular succulents because they both had baby ones as well as the larger ones in the same pot. This gave me a couple of sizes to play with.
Firstly clean the succulents and wash them, be careful not to damage the leaves because they will fall off or have bruises on them. I was lucky enough to find the tiniest baby succulents in one of the pots underneath the soil. I had some small pots lying around the house and re potted these, hopefully they will grow!
So with the wire place it next to the stem, or insert it into the base of the stem carefully, the smaller succulents don't allow you to insert them because they are too fragile, so they are placed next to the stem.
I cut the wire quite long, about 10 cm to ensure when I place them in the cake the weight of the succulent won't pull it down.
Get the florist tape and cut a portion off. Start to wrap it around the wire and stem together and stretch it at the same time. This is how florist tape works, you need to stretch it to make sure it sticks back onto itself.
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| Florist tape will turn translucent when stretched |
Wrap around the wire and stem a few times while stretching then wrap it the rest of the way down the wire until you reach the bottom, continue stretching the whole way down the wire as well.
Once you have all your desired succulents wired and taped set them aside.
Now onto masking the cake.
Choose a cake board larger then the cake itself. Pipe a tiny amount of butter cream on the board to stick the first layer down, my first layer was the top of one of the cakes, and so was the third layer. The second and last layer were the bottom of the cakes flipped upside down.
Once the first layer is stuck down, pipe the butter cream on top in a spiral to give you the most even surface. Then spread it flat with a small palette knife. Make sure it goes all the way to the edges, don't worry if it looks messy because it will be fixed up. Place the second layer on top and then repeat with the butter cream until all layers are on the cake. This is also where the notches come into play. Use these when stacking the layers up because they will help keep it flat.
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| This is the first layer |
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| See how my notches all line up |
Once this is completed pipe a spiral on the top of the cake, then pipe butter cream on to the sides of the cake.
Make sure your working area is free of all crumbs so that none of it gets on the outside of the cake.
Use a palette knife to even the surface onto the sides of the cake. I use an extra small palette knife because I personally like these but you can use whatever you feel comfortable using.
Once all the sides are smooth you can move onto smoothing the top, remember to keep an even pressure and always keep the palette knife flat to ensure your surface is also even.
Don't be afraid to let the butter cream droop over the sides of the cake when your smoothing the top, you will fix it after.
Now with those edges, use a small palette knife and lightly smooth the sides of the cake again but only around the top, remember to keep that palette knife straight or you will dent in the sides. You will notice the butter cream will come over the top of the cake and stand up straight, this is good and you want this to happen! Go all the way around the edges.
Now the fun part. Using your palette knife on a 45 degree angle, keeping it straight, start on the edges opposite you and pull the knife towards you keeping the pressure even and the palette knife straight. Try not to put too much pressure on the knife or you'll dent the job you've done on the top. Usually I pull the palette knife in towards about the middle of the cake, then clean the knife, or wipe it dry and continue this process while rotating the cake every time, keep this exact same process going.
Once the edges are finished the cake is just about done, I used a larger palette knife to make sure my sides were completely straight, I put a slight amount of pressure on the bottom of the knife while turning it around the cake to make sure it was always consistent pressure, almost like leveling it out.
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| Finished masking and ready for decorating |
Try not to keep touching the cake and fiddling with it as this is butter cream and it can start to separate.
Don't be alarmed if there is anything that doesn't look perfect, I have been doing this for a while and have masked many cakes so it just takes practice.
Now for around the cake I went to an art store and found wire edged burlap, which is nice because after I cut the burlap to the right length to go around the cake I folded the edges in about 1 cm two times to give it a cleaner edge/boarder.
When applying the burlap I started with the part of the cake I didn't like most because the joining of the burlap is where the succulents go.
So place 1 side of the burlap on and rotate the cake while sticking it on, do this at eye level to make sure it stays straight. Let it go all the way around. This doesn't require much pressure to stick on to the butter cream, be careful because if you push too hard it can make too much of a dent.
Now it is ready for the succulents, as I said before I put the succulents on where the join is on the burlap, this just covers it and creates a nicer surface. I only used 2 large and 2 small because it is a small wedding cake, other options are to place them on top of the cake as well.
If you need to store the cake in the fridge, pull it out a couple of hours before serving so the butter is nice and soft to eat.
Now we are finished!
This is a gorgeous simple cake that can be used for so many occasions, and it also tastes so delicious!
