Oh you poor, poor neglected blog. I feel a bit rusty and clunky writing here again, but what better way to be rejuvenated than with a cake that looks like THIS.
This cake started off as chicken scratches on a wee post it note while bored at work one night. I’d been trawling through the cake world on Instagram and felt inspired to try something totally out of my comfort zone, like I’d never attempted before.
I designed the outside and then, with that outrageousness in mind, tried to settle on a flavour. No way can you have a cake that’s so decadent and crazy on the outside with a boring old vanilla or chocolate cake inside. I contemplated a red velvet, a gin and tonic, a fruity flavour.. but settled on a Skittles cake.
I used my basic vanilla cake recipe, which makes three 7″ layers. You can use any plain vanilla cake recipe you like and adapt it to make whatever size and as many layers as you like.
While your cakes are baking, it’s time to make the Skittle Syrup which will be poured all over the cooled cakes!
Skittles Syrup
1/4 cup of each colour – I used tropical flavoured skittles so had pink, orange, yellow, blue and green.
1/4 cup of water for each colour.
Put one colour of skittles and water in a small saucepan and heat over a medium heat until the skittles have dissolved, stir throughout with a spatula or spoon. It may look like it wont form a liquid but just keep stirring. Pour in to a small heatproof bowl to cool. I popped mine in the fridge to cool quicker cause I’m super impatient! Repeat for the rest! Once the syrup has cooled and you’re ready to use it, strain it through a sieve cause the coating of the skittles forms a kind of wax on top which you don’t want in your cake!
Once your cakes have cooled, place them on plates and poke with a chopstick or other larger pointy kitchen object (I used the end of my handheld beaters cause that’s all I could find!!). Make as many holes as you like and don’t be shy. The bigger the hole, the more syrup goes in to the cake!
With a spoon, gently pour the syrup in spots around the cake, making sure to cover the entire thing. I didn’t quite use all of my syrup so just use your judgement here as to how much you put on!
I wrapped my cakes in glad wrap and let them sit in the fridge for a day, to absorb all the skittley goodness!
Now comes the most frustrating part of the entire cake, making the Skittle powder. Here’s something you may not know – Skittles are a pain in the ass to food process! EVERYTHING was covered a sticky blue powder buuuuut at least it tastes good enough to lick off 😉
So you’re gonna want to grind up 3/4 of a cup of ONE colour of Skittle. Such a pain in the ass separating out all the colours but so worth it. If you wanted to just chuck ’em all in – go for it – but you might end up with a brown buttercream! Not that appetizing!!
Skittles Buttercream
3/4 cup skittles, ground
180 grams butter, softened
500 grams icing sugar
4-6 tablespoons milk
This is made just like a normal buttercream. Beat your butter for a good wee while until really pale and fluffy. Add skittles powder and half of the icing sugar. Beat beat beat. Add the rest of the icing sugar and two tablespoons of milk. Beat it again! You can now add more milk to adjust to your preference. I like my buttercream smooth but thick so I added another 2 tablespoons which gave me a nice consistency. At this point, it hadn’t achieved the colour I’d imagined so I added in some Wilton teal gel colour. You can do this too, just add a little bit at a time on the end of a skewer and mix real good until fully incorporated.
Pull your cakes out of the fridge and start to assemble! There’s lots of great videos on Youtube that show you how to stack, crumb coat and buttercream cakes so I’m not gonna waffle on about that.
Next, I made a dark chocolate ganache with 200 grams of dark chocolate and 100 mls of cream, microwaved in three 30 second bursts. Let it cool, and then pour a little bit at a time on to the top of the cake, spread out with an offset spatula until it begins to drop over the edges.
And then the fun part! Decorating!!
I used Kit Kats, the leftover skittles and crushed up clinkers but you could use whatever takes your fancy! Serve with a warning of diabetes and ENJOY.
Procrastibaking 