Clown Cake

I tried something new this week – Sept 23rd – for the cake class. The cake consists of the same type of cake as last week, however, I made a chocolate icing rather than the white icing like last week. I wanted to decorate it more, but we ran out of time in class. At first I was thinking Zen clowns but Carla suggested that they looked like they were around a campfire – I can definitely see both!

We did what I expected with the cake last week, we scraped the icing off the cake and then ate the cake – the icing was made with vegetable shortening (Crisco) that Matt nor I really wanted to eat. So, I thought that I would make something I knew we would eat.  I looked at the canned icing and it too is made with vegetable shortening and has transfats in it – that wasn’t an option. So, I turned to the organic/natural aisle at Giant for a solution. I found an icing mix made by the same company as the cake was made by – Cherrybrook Kitchen – and they had chocolate and vanilla.  I bought the all natural Chocolate Frosting Mix that is gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, and nut-free. Instead of using the 2 1/2 sticks of margarine they suggested, I used 2 1/2 sticks of organic butter which no longer made it dairy-free, but made it taste awesome and I didn’t have to use anything artificial. With the icing made of butter it has to stay in the fridge otherwise, well, the icing gets soft and will go bad. And this week, we are actually eating the cake with the icing since it is chocolate and really good.

I still had to make the Crisco icing for the decorating portion of the cake and I chose purple and green for my colors this week. I think I might try the butter icing next week for the decorating portion – maybe I will make both and try them each out – just in case.

For decorating, we had to use clown heads and learned to build their bodies with icing. I am not that crazy about clowns, but everyone’s clowns did turn out pretty cute and not scary. We also learned how to do roses, various flowers, and a trim style that looks like shells.

Next week will be our last week. It has been fun so far.