Tomato and a KitchenAid

Here’s the thing being a little food obsessed and in my quest for further food news I’m a big reader of food blogs, specifically Melbourne food blogs. One that I read regularly is Tomato, read it here.

Here’s another thing, whilst I own lots of cool gadgets to help me be a better chef/cook I sadly don’t own a KitchenAid. Whilst I have longed for one and have come very close several times to buying one, it just hasn’t happened yet. Instead I own Tiffany.  Now Tiiffany was probably just the thing in 1985, but being a handheld she has the tendency to spray batter everywhere and she is so old she gives you a little electric shock every time you finish using her. I really really really really want a KitchenAid.

Here comes the clincher, Tomato is holding a competition to celebrate 6 years of blogging and the prize is, drumroll………a KitchenAid mixer.

Tomato is written by Ed Charles and I like his blog mainly because he has strong opinions, is well-informed and his writing is witty and easy to read. Ok, so he doesn’t have those food-porn photo’s and there isn’t recipe after recipe, but I don’t want that. Not knowing Ed, he comes across as someone who likes a drink, flavoursome not wanky food  and tells it like it is, basically it’s the polar opposite of those folksy-wifey-at home with hours of hours to make complicated recipes and take endless photo’s showing off how fabulous I am though I have never trained as a chef or worked in a professional kitchen type food blog. Whilst those blogs are not my bag, Ed’s blog is. There are lots and lots of food blogs, but I think only a few are worth reading, that’s another conversation for another time.

So, I thought a lot about my entry and I came up with a whole lot of ideas that I hoped would make me the winner. I thought of a 6 course dessert feast, 6 courses to celebrate each of the 6 years of blogging. And then I thought well anyone can make something and then make it look good in a photo (refer to one of those wifey-folksy-homey food blogs), so I thought of getting my food tasted and concocted a whole secret map with hidden treasures. I also though of just coming up with some really rocking party cake or this dessert (mojito tart) that I’d been thinking about for a long time and sending it to Ed. In the end I thought I’d go retro and make something that says what it means. So, Ed Charles to celebrate your 6 years of blogging I’ve made you a……………

In case you didn’t figure it out, it’s a cake in the shape of a KitchenAid, it’s a KitchenAid Cake Ta Da!

The recipe goes  a little like this………. BTW It would have been MUCH easier with an actual KitchenAid mixer!

I made 2 different types of cake for this recipe, a Butter Cake and a Devil’s Food Cake. You’ll need at least 5 cakes in total to assemble. I also used buttercream base bought at a speciality cake supply shop to achieve the red buttercream.

You can use your favourite Butter Cream, Madeira or Chocolate Cake recipe for this cake, here are the ones I used.

Butter Cake

Ingredients

125g butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup castor sugar

2 eggs

2 cups self-raising flour

pinch salt

1/2 cup milk

Method

Beat butter and vanilla together until white, add sugar, beat until light and creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Fold in sifted dry ingredients alternately with the milk. When all ingredients are added, beat mixture lightly until smooth.

Spoon mixture into well-greased deep 20cm square cake tin. Bake in moderate oven 55 to 60 minutes.

Devil’s Food Cake

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups self-raising flour

1 3/4 cups castor sugar

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2/3 cup cocoa

155g butter

1 cup water

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 eggs

Method 

Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl of electric mixer (oh for a Kitchenaid, sigh). Add softened butter, water and vanilla. Beat on medium speed of electric mixer for 3 minutes. Add eggs, increase speed slightly, beat for a further 3 minutes. Pour into well-greased deep 20cm cake tins. Bake in moderate oven 35 to 40 minutes.

Butter Cream

Ingredients

Butter cream base

500g pure icing sugar, sifted 3 times

colour of choice

1 teaspoon vanilla

Method

Beat butter cream base until light and fluffy, add half icing sugar and vanilla, continue to beat add remaining icing sugar and colour of choice beat until light and fluffy.

Assembly

I made a papercut out of the shape of the mixer using greaseproof paper. You can make a cake of any shape or description, just photo-copy a picture of the object to scale and then trace using kitchen greaseproof paper.

Place your paper outline over the cake/s and using a very sharp knife carefully cut the cake to shape. As you can see from the picture above I used 5 cakes in total, you could of course use less if you made bigger cakes, I didn’t.

Once all the cakes are cut cover with butter cream and other decorations that suit your purpose. And voila, a cake in the shape of a KitchenAid or whatever you fancy!

Oh, and if I win I’d like an Almond Cream coloured mixer, thanks