Secondly, let me explain the title of the post - the cake is called "the good witch", which to me says "white witch" (as in, white magic), and she has bangs* (well, musk sticks but let's not be too particular), which to me says "Stuff White People Like".
meh, a joke explained is never funny...
Anyway, to celebrate Halloween, and the birthdays of two of the lovely ladies at work, I decided to make the good witch from The Book.
OK, so it looks big but not that hard and there's little fine detail involved so it should be achievable, even if I am wearing a Stackhat and chained to the stove.
I decided to branch out a little from the packet-buttercake path and made a cake from scratch, from the Taste website - butterscotch almond cake. To tell the truth, it didn't taste very butterscotch-y - but the almond meal gave it a really great crumb and icing it was a breeze. It was dense and moist - probably because it was friggin huge that it actually didn't fit in my food processor (another vote for Kitchenaid stand mixer please Mrs Martha), so I don't know how well mixed it really was. Anyway, into the oven it went for about an hour and a half, then because it was so ginormous I let it cool overnight.
This morning comes, and I cut the cake out according to the diagram in the book, cut out all the candy trimmings, and start to make the icing. I decided to also branch out with that, and chose a recipe for white chocolate buttercream. Which tasted fine but was an absolute bitch to get right. First, I whizzed it in the food processor and it just went runny - like the whole thing was made form molten white chocolate. Then I tried beating it by hand, which just made it warmer and runnier. So, about to concede defeat and head to the shops to purchase Frosting of Death, I tried to firm it up in the freezer as a last ditch effort.
Success! I still wouldn't call it light and fluffy, but it would at least take some colour and was spreadable.
The next drama was colouring the bulk of it purple - turns out, doesn't work so well. i don't know how they got the vibrant colour in the book, but it wasn't happening for Martha. I ended up with a dirty sort of mauve.
That was all of the disasters out of the way - the only other thing I had to be creative with was her hair - french fries on cake? Nuh uh. So I used sliced up musk sticks instead, and I couldn't find any plain licorice so used chocolate licorice logs.
Oh and the greatest discovery yet? Black gel icing in a tube. It's supposed to be for writing but zomg, it worked so well as a replacement for licorice on all the decorations! My new favourite thing.
Happy birthday ladies...
