Help me with this birthday cake
 

First I need to decide on a cake recipe.

It has to be soy and nut/peanut free

It's going to be round, so I need it to come out of the pan perfectly. I have spring form pans that I can use if that will help.

I need to decide if I want one layer or two :think the theme is monsters. Ultimately the cake will be iced green with a mouth piped on, and lots of marshmallow eyes. Trying to decide whether or not to pipe on "fur"



I'll need an easy recipe for icing that doesn't melt and holds up to natural food dyes without getting runny.



:help

Re: Help me with this birthday cake
 

It's not cooking in the middle. Haaaalp!!

It fell visibly the last time I poked it. Praying it's not completely ruined. Also, what can I do to get it cooked through? I turned oven from 350 to 325 and set timer for another thirty minutes. :nails edges look done but center is rippley!

Re: Help me with this birthday cake
 

Sorry I didn't see this sooner. What recipe did you end up using? Most cakes don't use soy or peanuts, so that's not a hard thing to find. The thing with cakes is that you can't mess with the temp and pan size set out in the recipe. Baking is part chemistry. Cakes don't usually "fall" like a soufflé. :think

Re: Help me with this birthday cake
 

Most cake recipes I've seen call for soybean oil. I subbed butter. Also, I always just grab a random pan :shifty I didn't think that mattered so much :shifty

Re: Help me with this birthday cake
 

What?! I've NEVER seen a cake recipe that calls for soy-anything. A basic cake is butter, sugar, egg, flour, salt, vanilla and baking powder. Where are you looking at recipes?

How did it turn out in the end?

---------- Post added at 11:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:41 PM ----------

They say frostings that use shortning in place of some of the butter tend to hold up better to being left out. I've never tried it personally, though because it sounds icky. :shifty Cream cheese frosting is pretty much foolproof and would probably accept a runnier colouring than an all-butter frosting. It's stiff enough to use for piping. Do you have the right tip for fur?

Re: Help me with this birthday cake
 

I decided against the fur, mostly because I probably have the flu or something and am trying to streamline things at this point

The cake came out beautifully. Tomorrow I will frost it. And shortening is out completely because it's hard to find non soy based. I will probably just go with good ol buttercream and keep the cake in the fridge until party time.

Re: Help me with this birthday cake
 

:tu

Re: Help me with this birthday cake
 

Many recipes for buttercream have a little milk or water, so just include your coloring in that liquid volume :yes

Re: Help me with this birthday cake
 

My icing was too thin but it wasn't half bad. :)

Check out this photo from Snapbucket: http://pbckt.com/pN.RdLsnH

Re: Help me with this birthday cake
 

Awesome monster! :)

Re: Help me with this birthday cake
 

Love it:rockon