Winnie the Pooh showstopper cake

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The grewinnie main 2at British bake off finished for another year this week and I really think the right person won this year. The final showstopper challenge was a multi tiered classic British cake and one of my favourites is lemon cake. I wanted to make the decoration for the cake classically British as well and one of my favourite children’s books provided the inspiration. Winnie the pooh by A. A. Milne with the original illustrations by E. H. Shepard. The stories seemed perfect as they are part of so many people’s childhood, have some beautiful quotes in them and after all, what goes better with honey than lemon (cake)?

I admit that unlike the cakes in the final I only made two tiers as lemon cake and made the bottom tier as chocolate orange cake – simply because there’s only so much lemon cake that one family of four needs. I made tempered chocolate trees for the top tier, which is based on when Pooh and Piglet nearly catch a Woozle, I made a tempered chocolate house for Eeyore which stood at the base of the cake and I also made dark and white tempered chocolate honey pots filled with a white chocolate ganache.  The bottom two tiers are inspired by Winne the Pooh and some bees, when Pooh pretends to be a little black raincloud to get to the bees’ honey. In the collage picture you can see the detail on the cake and also the artwork which inspired it.

winnie the pooh cake collageOne of my favourite quotes from the Winnie the Pooh stories is “As soon as I saw you, I knew an adventure was going to happen”, it makes me think of when my children were born and I knew that life was never going to be the same. 

Winne the Pooh, Eeyore and the balloon are made from flower paste which dries harder than normal fondant and decorated with the same black water icing I used for the quote,the buzzing bees around Pooh and the footprints in the snow. The tree is made from normal fondant icing – the same kind I used to cover the cakes and the cake drum (board).

To fill and crumb coat all three of the cakes the cakes I made a lemon frosting with the juice from the lemons whose zest I used in the lemon cakes. See below the recipe for a look inside the cakes.

 

Winnie the Pooh lemon and chocolate orange showstopper
Serves 30
Two tiers of lemon cake on top of a base tier of chocolate orange cake, filled with lemon frosting and decorated with fondant icing and tempered chocolate. You will need two 6 inch tins, to 8 inch tins and two 9 inch tins.
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For the lemon cakes
  1. 500g Caster sugar
  2. 500g Unsalted butter (softened)
  3. 8 eggs (beaten)
  4. 500g Self raising flour
  5. Zest of 5 lemons
  6. Approximately 50ml of whole milk (may vary)
For the chocolate orange cake
  1. 500g Caster sugar
  2. 500g Unsalted butter (softened)
  3. 8 eggs (beaten)
  4. 410g Self raising flour
  5. 90g Cocoa powder
  6. Zest of 3 large oranges
  7. Approximately 75ml of whole milk (may vary)
For the lemon frosting
  1. 1Kg icing sugar
  2. 320g Unsalted butter (softened)
  3. 100ml whole milk
  4. Lemon juice to taste - I like this quite tangy.
To decorate
  1. 2Kg Ready to roll fondant icing
  2. Various gel food colourings
  3. 1 pack flower and modeling paste
  4. 200g Dark Belgian cooking chocolate
  5. 50g White Belgian cooking chocolate
  6. 50ml double cream
  7. Water icing
For the Lemon cakes
  1. Grease and line two 6 inch tins and two 8 inch tins. Preheat the oven to 160c fan or 180c non-fan.
  2. In a freestanding mixer cream together the butter and sugar until pale and mousse like.
  3. Add the beaten eggs a little at a time (add a few spoonfuls of the flour if the mixture starts to split).
  4. Stir in the flour.
  5. Stir in the lemon zest.
  6. Add the whole milk a little at a time until the mixture falls easily from a spoon.
  7. Split the mixture between the four cake tins and bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Bear in mind that the smaller cakes may bake faster than the larger cakes and may need to be taken out earlier.
  8. Remove the cakes from the tins and leave to cool on wire racks.
For the Chocolate orange cake
  1. Grease and line two 9 inch tins. Preheat the oven to 160c fan or 180c non-fan.
  2. In a freestanding mixer cream together the butter and sugar until pale and mousse like.
  3. Add the beaten eggs a little at a time (add a few spoonfuls of the flour if the mixture starts to split).
  4. Mix together the flour and cocoa powder then stir into the egg mixture.
  5. Stir in the orange zest.
  6. Add the whole milk a little at a time until the mixture falls easily from a spoon - you will need to add more milk than for the lemon cakes as the cocoa powder makes the mixture more dry.
  7. Split the mixture between the four cake tins and bake in the preheated oven for about 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
  8. Remove the cakes from the tins and leave to cool on wire racks.
For the lemon frosting
  1. In a freestanding mixer cream together the icin sugar and softened butter.
  2. Add the whole milk and mix on high speed until the mixture is smooth and light.
  3. While continuing to mix add lemon juice to taste - I added about 50ml but I like my frosting quite tangy.
For the decoration
  1. Level the cakes with a cake leveler or bread knife.
  2. Colour your fondant as appropriate, roll out on a non-stick mat then invert onto the cakes, peel off the mat and carefully smooth to remove any creases. Cut off excess fondant using a pizza wheel or knife.
  3. Temper the dark and white chocolate using the seeding method. I used chocolate moulds to make the honey pots and piped freehand onto grease- proof paper to make the sticks for Eeyore's house. To make the trees I sketched one on white paper and laid greaseproof paper on top before piping, moving the template along after creating each tree. Winnie the pooh, Eeyore and the balloon were made by hand from modeling paste, the tree nusing sugar craft tools from normal fondant.
  4. To make the white chocolate ganache filling for the honey pots add the cream (room temperature) to the tempered white chocolate and stir until combined then fill the chocolate honey pots, freeze for 10 minutes then join together with more tempered dark chocolate.
Mummy makes cakes http://jaisee.com/mummymakescakes/

Inside the lemon cakes were a consistent texture just as Paul and Mary asked for. The chocolate orange cake came out pretty well too. Also below are a few photos of the making process.
inside
Winnie the pooh collage 2
For some reason this week also made a classic carrot cake and some iced buns.

Mummy Mishaps

 

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5 comments

  3. jenny paulin says:

    this is a seriously cute cake – my mum would adore this cake. all the little details – like Emory’s stick house and the buzzing bees . just adorable and i bet it tasted very good too
    tank you for all your effort , and for joining in this year and good luck with the final. xx

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