LOTR/Hobbit Cake

Hello Lovelies! 

 

Today's a fantastic weather day and I'm finally finished with my literature class which means that I'm officially done with school! It's such a great feeling to know I don't have to worry about registering for classes anymore. In celebration, I wanted to share with you a cake that I made recently for someone's birthday. They gave me a picture of a LOTR/Hobbit cake from the internet, so I basically recreated that with my flair put in. Down below I'll include the recipes or products I used.  

 

 

 

It's a two tier high-ratio yellow cake with buttercream frosting and a buttercream fondant over it. The grass is all piped butter cream frosting and all the  figures are made from marshmallow fondant. The figures were all molded by my boyfriend because I'm very uneasy with my modeling skills, but since he's had multiple art and modeling classes in college, I felt it better with him to do those.  

One product that I purchased was the Buttercream Fondant. It's Duff's brand from Charm City Cakes. It's the second time I've used his fondant and I have to say I really prefer this fondant over Wilson's fondant because it's really easy to work with and it tastes quite nice. You can find a lot of his products at Michaels in the cake decorating aisles, but I really urge you not to buy things from them unless you have one of their coupons!  

 

High-Ratio Yellow Cake 

 

Yields 2-3 9 inch pans        Baking Temp: 340 degrees F 

 

Cake Flour                            1 lb 4 oz 

Granulated Sugar                1 lb 5oz 

Emulsified Shortening            10 oz 

Salt                                              .5 oz 

Baking Powder                           1 oz 

Dry Milk Powder                        2 oz 

Light Corn Syrup                        3 oz 

Water, cold                               18 oz 

Eggs                                            10 oz 

Lemon extract                      .25 fl oz 

 

Combine flour, sugar, shortening, salt, baking powder, milk powder, corn syrup and 8 oz of the cold water in a large bowl with a paddle attachment on a low speed for 5 minutes. 

 

Combine remaining ingredients in a separate bowl. Add these ingredients to creamed-fat mixture in three additions, making sure to scrape the bowl down after each addition. 

 

Beat for another 2 minutes on low speed 

 

Divide out the batter in a greased pan. only fill the pan up half way. Bake in at 340F until a toothpick comes out clean (usually 12 to 18 minutes but varies on your oven so make sure to keep checking it!) 

 

 

 

Butterceam Frosting 

 

1/2 cup Shortening 

1/2 cup Unsalted Butter (1 stick) 

1 tsp Vanilla Extract 

4 cups Sifted Powdered Sugar 

2 tbsp Milk 

 

Cream together Shortening and butter it's light and fluffy. Then add in vanilla extract. 

 

Add the powdered sugar in. It's best to do this one cup at a time, let in mix in, then scrape the bowl down to make sure nothing's stuck on the bottom. 

 

By this point the frosting will be a thick. Just add in the milk and mix it together. You can also add a little bit more milk if you need it a thinner frosting.