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Easter Egg Cake Tutorial

This beautiful Easter Egg Cake was made and photographed by Peg Weaver of Meridian, Idaho. For more of Peggy's beautiful and delicious bakery items, check out Peggy's Baking Corner.

This recipe will make (2) two half Egg Cakes. We will be using only one of the halves.

Equipment Needed For Cake:
3D egg pan from Wilton (4 parts)
Bowls for cake batter and for mixing your icings
Hand or counter mixer
Cookie sheet
Measuring cups and spoons

Please follow my instructions listed below instead of the instructions printed on the cake box. We are making a dense cake with this recipe so the cake will hold its shape and moistness longer. This will give you a longer time to do your decorating.

Cake Recipe:
1 (18.25-ounce) box white cake mix (Duncan Hines preferred)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
½ teaspoon baking powder
4 extra-large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon butter extract
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups warm water

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine all the cake mix, flour, sugar, cornstarch, and baking  powder; beat with the mixer to combine and to fluff up the mix (this will give you a lighter texture to the cake).

In another bowl, combine the eggs, oil, vanilla and butter extracts, and warm water; stir gently to break up the eggs. Pour the liquid mixture over the dry ingredients; using your mixer, mix on low for 2 minutes. Stop the mixer and scrape the bowls side and bottom. Mix for an additional 1 minute on low.

Prepare the Egg Pans by greasing them well with shortening. Place about 2 Tablespoons of flour in the pan and shake the pan allowing the flour to completely cover the shortening.  Dump out any excess. Repeat with the second pan.

Pour half of the batter in each pan (about 3 cups each). Gently tap the pans and swirl the batter up the sides of the egg pan, approximately 1/2 inch.  NOTE: By doing this, you are helping the batter creep up the side and rise easily white it is baking.

Place the pans on the rings on the cookie sheet. The pointed ends of the egg pan should be in the middle of the pan. This will help keep the ends from baking much faster than the deep part. NOTE: It is very important to make sure the pans are as level as possible.

Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until the cake is golden and a tooth pick comes out cleanly. Remove from oven and Place the egg pans, cake side up, on a cooling rack. Allow the cakes to cool completely before removing them from the pans. Cakes have a tendency to flatten out if they are removed from the pans while they are still warm.

Most likely, the cake will have quite a dome in the center after baking. When you remove the cake from the oven, take a clean tea towel, place it on the dome and gently press the dome down with your hand, flattening it out.  Please be careful, don't burn yourself.  


 

Fondant Icing/Covering:

Fondant Icing 101
(Recipe and Tutorial on making & using fondant icing)

Fondant Recipes

Making Fondant Icing>

Bubbles in the Fondant

Covering Cakes with Fondant Icing

Decorating Cakes with Fondant Icing

Marbling Fondant Icing
 

Now, here is where you occasionally get into trouble. 

If your cake does not want to release from the pan there are a few things you can try to help:

Trick 1 - Take a long clean sock. Fill it with about a pound of rice and tie a knot in the sox top.  Heat this in your microwave for 2 to 3 minutes. The rice should be quite hot, so be careful handling the sox. Snake the hot sock over the top of the inverted (cake side down on the cooling rack) and let it sit. If a couple of minutes the cake should gently release and be sitting on the rack. Remove the sock and pan and proceed with the second egg pan. Allow the cake to re-cool completely. 

Trick 2 - Place the inverted cake on a piece of parchment paper. Get out your hair dryer and gently warm the pan.  After a few minutes, your cake should release and drop on the parchment. Remove the pan and allow the cake to re-cool completely.

NOTE: While you are waiting for your cakes to cool there are a few thing to do. Make your Buttercream Icing and prepare your cake boards (if you haven’t already). If you are going to place your cake on a platter, you won’t need to cover a cake board.
 

If you have any additional questions or comments that have not been answers in the categories above, Peggy will try to answer them for you.

Email Peggy: (just click on the underlined): Peggy Weaver.

Prepare your Cake Boards - Cake Board Preparation:      

To make a custom shaped cake board is really quite easy. You will need:

• (2) two cake boards (a 10 x 14-inch heavy cardboard) for each cake

• Craft knife

• Compass or a fork

• Pencil

• Whatever you want to cover your board with*

*You can cover your board with many things. Some of the options are Aluminum Foil, Florists Wrap. Folks use a gift wrap paper but make sure that your cake is setting on a cake board the exact size of your cake. You don’t want the food sitting on the gift wrap.  It’s not food safe and the oil from the cake can look very unappetizing. 
 

Place a cake board on your counter. Now, place your clean cake pan upside down on the board. You will want the finished board to be at least 2 inches bigger than your cake so spread the compass points out at least 1 inch and trace around the outside lip of the cake pan. If you don’t have a compass, you can use a fork. Put the fork tine up against the outside edge of the cake pan and carefully, slowly, drag the fork so that you leave a gently impression on the board.  After you have a track all the way around the cake pan, you can remove the pan and retrace the fork tines impression with a pencil. 

Carefully cut out the shape with your craft knife. I prefer to cut out (1) one board at a time. This gives me the best control and neatest boards. Repeat as many times as needed to cut out the necessary number of boards.
 

Filling:
After your cake is on the cake board, you are ready to slice the cake and put in your filling. I like to use a serrated bladed knife.

Gently remove the top layer and set aside. Gently place spoons of icing on the cake layer and with the spatula move the icing around (I like to use about 6 ounces (about ½ inch thick) for this cake).  Place the top layer on and gently push the layer down into the icing.  If the filling oozes out, remove the excess but do not mix this in with the icing (it might have crumbs in it).  Now is also the time to fill in any holes in the filling layer.  For the best look, you want everything on the outside edge of the cake as smooth as possible.
 

Crumb Coat:
Simply put, it is no more than a thin layer of icing. You’ll be using about 2 ounces of Buttercream Icing here. If I have scraped any leftovers from the filling oozing out, I use that icing now in the crumb coat. Try to get it on smooth and don’t worry about a few lines, your final coat will cover them up. 

Place your cake in the refrigerator for at least an hour to help firm up the coating. Often I will crumb coat last thing at night and let the cake sit in a cool room, overnight to firm up completely.
 

Final Icing:
Now you will be doing your final icing.  Place spoonfuls of Buttercream Icing over the cake so that you don’t have to “pull” the icing too much over the cakes surface. Using an offset spatula, gently move the icing about so that you have as smooth coating as possible all over the cake.

Preparing the colored icing:
A few hints about using Food colors. Don’t use the liquid food colors that you purchase at the market. To get an intense color you will have to use so much of the color that you can change the consistency of the icing. I prefer using the gel colors. Start with a tiny bit on a toothpick and blend well, then decide if you need more. Remember, you can always add more color - but you can’t remove color!  I always line all my colors up together to see if they go together. Now is the time to make the necessary changes. Also, make sure that you mix enough of your colors. It is very difficult to try to match a second batch of color to the first batch.

In bowls or in plastic cups, prepare 10-ounces light yellow icing, 4-ounces light blue icing, 6-ounces light pink icing, and 4-ounces of light green icing.

To learn how fill the icing bags and how to use the piping techniques of this cake you can refer to the Wilton Decorating Techniques: http://www.wilton.com/decorating/basic/index.cfm. We will be doing straight piping - Bead, Star, and a Shell to finish at the bottom edge of the cake.  

Prepare your icing bags. You will need 4 piping bags, couplers, and the tips mentioned above.