VOLCANO BIRTHDAY CAKE

 Our little owl (the older one) celebrated his third birthday! With his latest fascination being – besides windmills – volcanoes with lava, craters and explosions, it was obvious that the cake had to be a volcano! Let me introduce to you Julek’s third birthday cake – the volcano!

The cake itself is traditional, consisting of a sponge cake, two creams and cherry preserve. It is a rather worn-out set, but it suits my kids best, because I cannot prepare them a deeply coffee- or nut-flavoured one and they do not really fall for chocolate either.

recipe

sponge cake:

6 eggs

6 spoons of wheat flour

6 spoons of potato flour

12 spoons of sugar

1/2 spoon of baking powder

*

chocolate and nut cream:

300 g of double cream

200 g of milk chocolate (bitter if you prefer)

handful of chopped nuts, e.g. cashew nuts, walnuts and Brazilian nuts

*

mascarpone cream:

500 g of mascarpone cheese

500 g of cream (36%)

4 spoons of icing sugar

vanilla essence

*

punch:

1 glass of boiled water

3 spoons of sugar

half a glass of lemon juice

*

cherry preserve

***

1. Prepare the sponge cake using the following principle: for each egg add 1 spoon of wheat flour, 1 spoon of potato flour, 2 spoons of sugar and 1/4 spoon of baking powder. I prepare the cake from 6 eggs and use a tin that has 21 cm in diameter. You will need at least 500 g of icing for such a cake.

Beat the egg whites stiff, add sugar and beat some more. Add yolks and, after that, flour mixed with baking powder, stir.

2. A piece of advice from my mum: instead of potato flour you can use wheat flour but add a spoon or two of vinegar, as it helps curdle the whites, makes the sponge cake lighter and prevents it from sinking. I should try that next time.

For this occasion, I baked the cake in my grandma’s tin which has a hole in the middle so that the cake would resemble a real volcano.

Bake in a 21-cm tin for 35-45 minutes in 180º C. Check whether the sponge cake is dry with the help of a small stick.

Now comes the infamous dropping of the cake! I do not have any idea how I manage to pull it off, but I always drop it! For the uninitiated: you drop the cake when it’s still in the tin, from the height of about half a meter, which supposedly prevents it from sinking. Whether it is true or not, I always do it and my sponges are puffy enough.

When the sponge cake cools down, take out of the tin and slice into three layers.

*

Prepare the mascarpone cream by whisking the cream with mascarpone cheese and icing sugar. You can add a few drops of vanilla aroma. I also added two colourings – red and yellows – to achieve that desired lava effect.

Prepare the punch by melting sugar in the water and adding lemon juice.

Prepare the chocolate cream by melting chocolate in hot water and cool it down. Beat the cream, add melted chocolate and stir until smooth. Add chopped nuts and mix well.

With all the ingredients ready, we can begin assembling the volcano!

*

Slice the sponge cake into three layers.

Moisten the bottom layer with lemon punch and place cherries on top. Cover it delicately in chocolate cream – mine was a bit crumbly and would not spread well so I put some of the mascarpone cream on top, so as to level the layer and make the structure of the cake hold better.

Add the second layer, moisten with punch, put the mascarpone cream on top and add a couple of cherries (not too many). Add the last moistened layer, but remember: the bottom should be moistened most and the top of the cake should be the driest.

Fill the empty middle with whatever’s left – lots of chocolate cream on the bottom, then cherries, mascarpone cheese, chopped nuts and cream on top.

Decorate the top – I covered it in a mascarpone-cream cream and sprinkled with bitter chocolate and cocoa. I made the lava tongues from cream and fondant. I also added a couple of M&Ms (yellow, red and orange ones, of course) and a couple of golden balls. I sprinkled some golden powder on top and on the lava tongues to make them fiery.

Bon appetit!