Birthday Robot Cake

Birthday Cake: 19-Mar-2011

Made this cake as a special request from a friend, Karen for her son, Seth... Enjoyed baking & creating it... Blessed 8th Birthday Seth!


Robot cake idea was copied from here: http://www.kulturblog.com/2009/07/robot-cake/

Karen's blurb:

Karen, the cake was a BIG hit! The kids went crazy over the lollies and icing (of course!), the adults really liked the strawberries and the vanilla sponge.  We all had seconds! :) I still hv the robot's head in my fridge and slowly savouring it! Absolutely delicious!  Sponge cake was just right, not too dry.  Even tho strawberries were a little sour, I thot it went well with the icing.  Personally, icing was a little too sweet for my liking tho.


A HUGE thank you for doing this.  Seth loved it!  We weren't allowed to eat its head! but a few days' time, he'll soon realise its gone! ha! You did very well with decorating the cake.  Its exactly what I wanted..colour, lollies deco and the mashmallows...all turned out well, even the last minute chopping board! :P  Overall a fantastic job well done.  

Cake & Filling Recipe: 
The cake was made using the recipe I blogged about just before, the japanese strawberry shortcake. I doubled the recipe & baked it in 2 tins, a 7" & an 8" square tin, lining just the bottom of the tin with baking paper & sprayed some oil onto it. When cake has cooled completely, cut cake horizontally twice, so that you end up with 3 layers of cake.


The filling was also the same recipe as in the japanese strawberry shortcake recipe complete with fresh cream & strawberries! :-)


Coloured Frosting Recipe:
The colored icing on the outside was made using Martha Stewart's Sprinkles Strawberry Frosting.


I made 2 lots of frosting using 500g unsalted butter & put 4 tbsp strawberry puree instead (as I did not want it too pink) & 6 cups of pure icing sugar. After frosting was prepared, I measured out about 1 cup of frosting & added about 1/4 tsp of color that I needed (except for the black, where I used 1/8 tsp - as I want grey not charcoal! LOL!). 


The blue required about 3 - 4 cups of frosting, whilst the green & grey only required 1 cup of frosting each.


Ingredients:
1/2 cup strawberries, cut small & blended into puree (you will need 4 - 6 tbsp of this strawberry puree)
500g unsalted butter
2 pinches of sea salt
6 cups pure icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla essence


Method:
1. Process strawberries using a barmix or blender until pureed.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together butter & salt on medium to high speed until light & fluffy (butter changes to a lighter color & lighter consistency).
3. Reduce speed & slowly add icing sugar. Beat until well combined.
4. Add vanilla & strawberry puree (save any remaining strawberry puree for another use). Mix until just blended. 
5. Do not over mix or frosting will incorporate too much air. Frosting consistency should be dense & creamy, like ice-cream. (Although I like my frosting to be a little lighter so I actually beat it mine a little more).

Assembly of cake: 
I used the smaller cake (7") for the body & cut up the 8" cake for the head, saving the off cuts for the hands & feet. I then used Pascall's White Mega Mallows (I have to find out where to buy this from, as Karen had them in her pantry & passed them to me... and I've not seen pure white marshmallows in Safeway or Coles for the longest ever time...) for the arms & legs, neck, ears & eyes. Additional lollies for decoration.

Birthday Robot Cake