So to jump on the smurf bandwagon this summer, my daughter wanted a smurf cake for her sixth birthday. This would be her second birthday cake this year. You can see her first cake, the Rapunzel Cake, on this blog. That cake was a major multi-week effort so I wanted something "easy" for the second go. When she requested Smurfs, I thought oh..no...here we go again, especially because I have virtually no sculpting experience. Hmmm....
I decided I would work with modeling chocolate to make the surfs, mostly because I'm out of gum paste :-( My work recently moved locations and getting nice wonderful high quality gum paste at the ONE store in my area that sells it is no longer a simple trek during lunch. :-( :-(. Needless to say, making a special trip just didn't fit into my "easy" definition. BUT I had candy melts. Lots and lots of candy melts. And luckily...BLUE and RED. Definite pantry score.
The recipe for the modeling chocolate/candy was straight from Wilton:
Melt bag of candy melts in microwave
Mix in 2/3 Cup of Corn Syrup until paste forms
Cool (Wilton recommends overnight, but if you are willing to work the dough until its pliable and smooth, you only need to let it sit for an hour or two)
I also found that candy melts are easier to work with than modeling chocolate made from chocolate chips.
I then molded the little blue men (and the one lady). You can see them "naked" above. I used wire inside the bodies to support and hold their shape. Somewhat sad smurfs, I know ,,,,but they do get better, I promise..................
Happy Smurfs!!! Ok...not absolute look-a-likes, but you can clearly tell what they are. Brainy was my favorite.
Now, a little about the cake:
The base cake was an experiment recipe that turned out slightly dryer than most my cakes, but I'm pretty sure I know why and how to fix it. (I used too much brandy which I think evaporated too soon in the baking. Will need add yogurt or sour cream next time, to hold the moisture, beyond the slight dryness, everything else in the structure of the cake was fabulous) The filling was whipped cream with pureed strawberries to make "strawberries in cream".
The mushroom house portion was a gluten free cake as one of the party guest was gluten intolerant. Betty Crocker has a new line of gluten free desserts. It turned out much better than expected, a slight cornmeal taste and definitely sweeter than a regular cake. As a gluten cake doesn't rise, I cooked it in a 8x11 pan and then used a circle cutter to cut the shape of the house. I then stacked the small rounds, layering with the same strawberries in cream filling. The Betty Crocker's cakes are a good stand in so you can provide something to your guests and no one is left out of the party, especially when its a young child. I definitely however want to develop my own gluten free recipe so I have something fantastic at hand, if for some reason I need to make a whole cake. The gluten free cakes remind me of the Victorian nut cakes in many ways...going to have to explore that later...
Frosting was a simple butter cream on all the cake (1 lbs powdered sugar, 2 sticks butter, 1 ts vanilla, 6 tbsp milk). The mushroom roof was modeling candy.
In the end... SMURF-ALICIOUS, SMURF-TASTIC SMURF CAKE. yum
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