Moon Cake
A quick post…for my son’s third birthday he asked for a moon cake, so I did my best to make him a cake that looked like a moon. Inside the outer layers of craters and indents in fondant are multiple layers of moist delicious pineapple cake. This cake was very fun to make and yummy to eat. I had one happy and satisfied three year old. Whilst the recipe for the cake is posted here, this post is really an archive post to document the birthday cake for future reference.
Nevertheless, this creation made for a great addition to the collection of space themed 3rd birthday cakes I made for my older son’s. The first was a bottle rocket cake, then a galaxy mirror glaze cake and now a moon cake. For those who were curious, we had fruit themed 2nd birthday cakes too. In this case, it was the watermelon cake made with strawberry and cream flavoured cake, pineapple cake made with pineapple cake and finally cake that was shaped to look like a banana cake made with banana cake and chocolate buttercream – they were all delicious and happily consumed by the birthday boys, their friends and family. Good times!
Tips and Tricks
The pineapple cake recipe cake be found here too. It is the same recipe for pineapple cake that I used inside the cake shaped like a pineapple cake that I made for when one of my son’s turned 2. However, I have re-posted it here as well in case you do not want to trudge through the pineapple cake post to find the recipe.
To get grey fondant I used ivory fondant and black food coloring.
For the big craters I made rings of fondant and glued them straight to the cake with buttercream before covering the whole cake with a layer of fondant. The smaller craters are created using the ball end of a fondant tool and gently pressing into the fondant.
For shading I painted on black gel food coloring that had been diluted with vodka.
Moon Cake
Serves 8
Ingredients:
330g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 can (425g) crushed pineapple
120g unsalted butter
100g sugar
1 tsp lemon zest
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
Method:
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together into a bowl.
Cream the butter, sugar and lemon zest together until light and fluffy
Beat eggs into the mixture one at a time; add the vanilla essence.
Add the dry ingredients alternately with the crushed pineapple.
Pour mixture into a springform pan
Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees celcius for 35-40 minutes or until lightly browned on the top and a skewer comes out clean.
Cut cake into layers and sandwich together with buttercream. The crumb coat and leave in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Make rings of fondant and stick them to the cake using buttercream – these will give an outline for the big craters of your moon cake.
Cover with grey fondant, moulding raised edges over the fondant rings and poking indents into the fondant for craters.
Add shading with black of dark grey food dust or powder or in my case diluted black gel food coloring.