The Pinata Cake That Was a Smash… Literally!

June 6, 2014

In my little family of four, our birthday Cakes are a BIG deal.

The kids like to pour over the cake books and search the internet endlessly to find the most difficult, elaborate, and out there cake they could possibly ask me to make.

This year my 6 year old boy Cam decided it had to be a Pinata Cake. A hard shell of chocolate on the outside that he could crack open with a hammer, and on the on the inside – chocolate cake, with thick chocolate icing.

He also decided that he would like the inside of the cake to have gold coins in it. Oh and just to complicate things further, this was not to be any girly sort of pinata. Nope the design had to look like a soccer ball.

Over the weeks that this elaborate cake was starting to form in my 6 year old’s minds eye, the wish list and criteria for the cake grew and grew along with my stress levels and doubts about whether I could pull this off.

You see I am not a baker.

In the past I have somehow managed to make an elaborate Pirate ship cake, the Humpty dumpty cake, the number cakes and a whole load of other cakes from the Women’s Weekly Birthday cake book.

But never a pinata cake.

So I started doing some research and found a great tutorial on how to make the shell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISM7EM6OWLU (or you can just look up pinata cake on YouTube)

I bought all the required ingredients and decided that I would make the shell on the Friday night … just in case it didn’t work out. The party wasn’t until Sunday so if all failed I would still have a chance to try again on Saturday.

Step 1 involved painting three layers of white chocolate on the inside of a metal bowl and freezing the bowl in between each layer.

Absolutely the best tip I can pass on to you at this point is to rub olive oil or vegetable oil on the inside of the silver bowl before adding your first layer. This will mean that when it’s all solid and ready to be lifted out , it won’t stick to the inside of the bowl.

Step 2 bake and ice the cakes to go on the inside.

Step 3 top the cake with coins or lollies.

Step 4 place the chocolate shell over the cake and decorate.

Tada! You are done.

When the time finally came time to light the candles and sing happy birthday, the look on my son’s face said it all. I had just created a wonderful childhood memory.

As he started smashing the cake with a hammer, all the other 7 year old boys started to get very excited. All of a sudden the cake split open and a dozen filthy grimy hands flew in and started grabbing hand fulls of coins and chocolate cake.

Success!

Happy 7th birthday little man child.

PS for all the adults I served the cake to, just an FYI – I cut the mangled, fisted top layer off before serving you a piece. You’re welcome!