Lightning McQueen cake

It has been a year ago when my baking journey begins...

It was Elmo and Cookie monster cupcakes for my child's one year old birthday cake that got me to be what I am today...

This Lightning McQueen cake is not flawless but is made with lots of love.

Happy 2nd Birthday, son! Mum made this cake for you.

The lightning McQueen cake pan that I used is from Wilton and it comes with concise baking and decoration instructions. I didn't like the idea of using instant cake mix or frosting mix as mentioned in the instructions. To me, using the instant mix wouldn't make any difference from buying the cake from any cake shops.

This is how I made this cake...

 

 

Here's the recipe that I used to make the Lightning McQueen cake base.

Devil's food cake from Australian Women Weekly Mini cookbook, Chocolate cakes 
(with my minor modification in blue)

Ingredients

180g unsalted butter, chopped
385g (1 3/4 cup) caster sugar
3 egg (lightly beaten)
225g (1 1/2 cup) self-raising flour
75g (1/2 cup) plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate soda (substitute with baking powder)
70g (2/3 cup) cocoa powder
3 tsp instant coffee powder (substitute with cocoa powder)
1/2 tsp red food coloring (I didn't add this)
125ml (1/2 cup) water
125ml (1/2 cup) milk

1. Preheat oven to 160°C (fan forced).
2. Grease cake pan with canola oil spray and set aside. (The recipe uses 2 x 20 cm round cake pans.)
3. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Fold in sifted flours, soda (baking powder) and cocoa powder (with combined coffee powder and coloring), water and milk alternatively and in 2-3 batches.
5. Sift flour, cocoa powder, coffee powder, baking soda and salt into a separate bowl.
6. Pour mixture into prepared pans.
7. Bake for 45 min or until skewer comes out clean when inserted in center of cake.
8. Turn cake onto wire rack to cool.

This is what I did:
The amount of ingredients is increased by 1 1/3 time of the above recipe. 
All areas of the pan has to be filled evenly with this amount of batter and the excess might fall off the pan while baking. After the cake is removed from oven, cool the cake for 10 minutes. 
While the cake is still in the pan, carefully slice off the raised center portion of the cake. This allows the cake to sit more level and helps prevent cracking. 
To remove cake from pan, place cooling rack against cake and turn both cake rack and pan over. Lift pan off carefully. Cool cake at least one hour. Brush loose crumbs off cake and transfer cake to serving board.

The Wilton instruction uses shortening to make their buttercream which I think that it is a bad idea to feed my son and his little friends with this large amount of saturated fat. I know that butter is as bad but definitely better than shortening.

This is the buttercream recipe that I have used.
500g butter
1 kg icing sugar
160ml (2/3 cup) milk

Cream butter and icing sugar with electric mixer. Add milk gradually while beating at medium speed until light and fluffy.
Add a small amount of light syrup to thin the buttercream for cake icing. This will make 5 1/4 cup of buttercream with approximately 1 cup of excess.

Make 5 1/4 cups buttercream icing:
• Tint 1/2 cup Black
• Tint 1/4 cup Gray (using Black)
• Tint 1/2 cup Yellow
• Tint 1 cup Red in set
• Tint 1/4 cup Brown Red
• Tint 1/4 cup Blue (add a little Black to Blue)
• Tint 1/4 cup Light Blue
• Reserve 2 1/4 cups white (thin with 1 1/4 cups with 4 teaspoons light corn syrup)

Decorate in numerical order:
1. Ice cake sides, background areas, front windshield, mouth, headlights smooth with thinned white.
2. Ice side windows and small lightning bolt smooth in Light Blue.
3. Ice wheel wells smooth in dark Red.
4. Outline car, windows, mouth, headlights, hood, lightning bolts and tires with tip 3 in Black.
5. Outline number with tip 3 in White. Add tip 3 dot rivets on hood.
6. Cover tires with tip 16 lines in Black.
7. Pipe-in eyes with tip 3 in Blue (smooth with finger dipped in cornstarch). Pipe-in pupils with tip 3 in Black (smooth with finger dipped in cornstarch).
8. Cover car with tip 16 stars in Red.
9. Cover lightning bolt with tip 16 stars in Yellow and Orange.
10. Cover number tip 16 stars in Orange.
11. Pipe muffler with tip 3 in Gray.
12. Pipe shell bottom border with tip 21 in White.

Happy Baking and I'm very happy baking this cake.
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