Beach Cake

Hasini’s 4^th birthday last month was a beach themed party and I chose to make a beach cake. I’ll tell you exactly how it came about. I first chose the cake and then the theme. The beach cake seemed doable enough – bake the cake, slap the frosting all over, cover three quarters of the top with crushed cookies (I used digestive biscuits) to make the sand and the remaining quarter with blue frosting to make the sea. Boy, was I wrong. I didn’t give much thought to the “blue” frosting part.

Guess what, there’s no blue food colour in stores. Atleast not in Nilgiris, Amma Naana, Nuts and Spices or N2H. I was too far into it to change the cake. We’d made the decorations and decided the menu even. I scoured the net for ideas. I even bought purple cabbage to make my own natural blue food colour. You have to boil purple cabbage, reduce the boiled liquid which is purple in colour and finally add baking soda to make it blue. You’ve got to be very careful adding the baking soda as a little too much and the liquid will turn green. Thankfully I didn’t have to go down that path as my friend Priya came to the rescue. She suggested Blue Curacao syrup a lovely deep blue syrup which is used in mocktails. I bought two of these bottles but I ended up using just about 2 tablespoons of it as the frosting was getting too runny. It was maddeningly sultry that day and I didn’t have time to chill the cake after creating the “sea” and the sea sort of surged over.

I used Hershey’s perfectlychocolate chocolate cake recipe, doubled it to make two rectangular cakes which I stacked one atop the other. I filled and frosted the cake with this yummy chocolate frosting (I tripled the recipe). I made a small batch of vanilla frosting for the sea. The cake was delightfully moist, chocolatey and absolutely scrummy. The cake was so moist and tender, it was a task slicing and serving given that we didn’t have the cake lifter. Don’t attempt to serve this cake without a cake slicer/lifter. Bake the cakes and make the frosting the day before and then assemble the next day. Breaking the whole thing into components I find helps keep my sanity.

Notes:

1.      Line cake pans with butter paper before baking this cake. You’ll thank me later for this advice.

2.      Chill the cakes for a minimum of 3 hours or even overnight before frosting. Chilled cakes are much easier to frost.

3.      While making the frosting, don’t skip straining the cooked flour mixture although it’s a pain if the mixture gets too thick. I had a great arm workout that day straining the mixture. I used a spoon to stir around the mixture in the sieve. Straining ensures a silky smooth frosting.

4.      Frosting looks a bit runny once done but thickens on chilling. So refrigerate the frosting for a couple of hours minimum before using.

5.      Before you start frosting, prepare your cake board if you don’t have one. Stick 2-3 rectangular cardboard pieces (2 inches larger than your cake on all sides) back to back and cover with foil. Let dry and use.

6.      Once cake board is ready, switch off the fan and cut a sheet of butter paper to the dimensions of the cake board and place it on the cake board. Fold it in half, then again in half and then into a triangle. Cut along all the folded edges right down to the centre. Unfold and place on the cake board as before. You’ll be placing the cake on top of these butter paper pieces. The butter paper protects the cake board from frosting stains and by cutting them into triangles, they can easily be pulled from underneath the cake.

7.      Invert the cake gently on the butter paper. Peel off the butter paper and spread frosting on the cake. Start with the top, you can always slide off the excess frosting to the sides and smooth it.

8.      Frosting taken out of the fridge may be too hard. Use a whisk to whisk it to spreadable, soft consistency and then frost the cake.

9.      After layering frosting, invert the other cake on top aligning the edges with the other cake. Peel off the butter paper and frost the top of the cake and then the sides. Work fast but gently as the cake is very tender and can easily break. If you’re too slow, the frosting can get runny. Once completely frosted, chill the cake for half an hour.

10.   I used one big pack of digestive biscuits, ran them through my mixie to crush them and then sieved them. I used a small strainer to dust the top with biscuit crumbs to make the sand. Make it at an angle to create an irregular shore-line.

11.   Make a small batch of vanilla frosting for the sea. Mix a little of the blue syrup into the frosting. Spread on the remaining portion of the cake. Reserve about 2 teaspoons of the syrup which you could drizzle at the last moment just before the cake is to be cut.