Burger Cake

A Special Guest Post by Lucie Ingham

The theme for August's Bolton Clandestine Cake Club was Americana. I knew it would spark some interesting creations, but this cake had to be my favourite! 

Lucie and I went to the same school but only got to know each other fairly recently through our love of cake. She is super talented but hugely modest with it. I was so impressed with her burger cake creation that I asked her to do a guest post on my blog, with the hope that one day soon she will start her own (nudge...) So thank you Lucie, I'm sure this post will inspire many!

So, here's Lucie's post on how she created that wonderful cake...

Burger Flag Cake

I was already really excited about this month’s CCC Bolton. As soon as I heard the theme was ‘Americana’ I knew I had an excuse to make the burger cake I had made for a friend’s birthday a few years ago which proved to be very popular. However, after watching the return of The Great British Bake Off this week, I got very giddy about the thought of attempting a showstopper design inside. Of course after seeing two Union Jack designs on the show, it had to be stars and stripes!

I spent the next couple of days trying to figure out how I could get the American flag to appear when sliced. Always keen for a cakey challenge, it had to include all the detail, including the little white stars!

After lots of searching online I came across a recipe for blue velvet cake pops which gave me an idea…

I baked three eight inch vanilla sponges and added lots of red colouring (I used Sugarflair red extra paste). I cut each sponge in half using a wire cake cutter and stacked all six layers with a thick layer of buttercream. I would recommend using a stiff buttercream so the layers don’t start to slide on top of one another. I then cut out the centre of the top two layers using a large scone cutter and carved the edges to give the top a bun shape.

The secret behind the blue cake with the white chocolate stars is that I didn’t bake the cake with the stars inside. They are so thin that they melt on your hands in seconds so I knew they wouldn’t stand the oven! Instead I baked four bright blue cupcakes and crumbled them once cooled. To bind them I added a couple of tablespoons of cream cheese frosting (also with blue colouring) then gently folded in the white chocolate stars (mine were from Asda). I then packed the centre of the cake with the mixture and jammed in lots of stars stood upright in the hope that they would be facing the right way when cut with a knife!

You then smother the whole cake in a soft buttercream ready to stick the sugarpaste.

Bearing in mind it had already taken me one full evening to get to this stage, the following morning I was up early mixing all the different colours of sugarpaste whilst my mum very kindly entertained my 5 month old daughter! Where possible I try and buy ready coloured icing as darker colours can use a lot of colouring and become sticky (it’s also hard work!), however as they don’t sell a burger bun colour, I used Sugarflair paprika/flesh coloured paste with a little dark brown to darken it to a bread colour. I rolled one long sausage big enough to fit around the cake, flattened it to about 1cm thick then cut the edges straight before fitting it around the base of the cake. I then rolled a thicker sausage of dark brown, pressed it into a D shape (about 2cm deep) and added some texture by pushing my knuckles into it to make it look like a beef burger. You can then add whatever extras you like on your burgers – I rolled out and cut 4 yellow triangles and fitted them to give the appearance of a cheese slice, some curly lettuce, tomatoes (with seeds!) and onion. You could add oozes of sauce or gherkins (if you’re mad!)

I then rolled a thick round piece for the top bun. I’d recommend rolling this about 1cm thick so it’s thick enough not to break apart and can be smoothed to shape without showing every lump and bump. My salad and cheese were about 0.5cm thick, if it’s any thicker of heavier it might fall off! You will need a fairly wet buttercream on the outside of the cake for everything to stick.

I then trimmed the bun to size with a small sharp knife so that it covered all the raw edges of the salad and added sesame seeds with cream sugarpaste. To stick sugarpaste to sugarpaste I would recommend using cake decoration glue and a delicate paint brush. If you don’t have this you could use a tiny amount of water, but be careful as water and sugarpaste don’t mix!

I didn’t have the time (or patience!) for a test run so I was thrilled with the result on the day. Everyone was talking about the burger cake and asking how I got the stars inside. Clandestine Cake Club asked for a photo for their next homepage changeover and over 3,400 have viewed it so far on their Facebook page! I’m so glad everyone loved it and hope I have inspired a few to give it a go!

 

A big thanks to Dollybakes for organising the Bolton CCC events and giving me a great excuse to make my burger cake again. Also a big thank you for featuring it on your blog! I keep being asked to blog my baking and baby adventures so hoping to get one up and running soon. Watch this space!

Lucie

@littlecakemaker

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