Surprise Cake

​What's better than making a birthday cake for the most excellent eleven year old girl?  Helping that eleven year old make her OWN birthday cake!  Seriously, I never had this much fun when I make a cake all by myself in the kitchen.  

The top of this cake is the tie dye cake that was featured on yesterday's blog post.  The bottom of the cake is a surprise cake with hidden tie dye stars in the center.

​This was my first attempt at trying to bake a shape inside of another cake so I wasn't quite sure how it would turn out but fortunately for me (and the birthday girl) it was a huge success.

​I started with an extra tye dye cake that the girls and I had baked the night before.  (Thanks to an unexpected thunderstorm that cancelled their pool plans.)  I used a star cookie cutter to cut shapes the cake into mini stars.

​I placed my stars on a cooling rack and put them into the freezer for an hour.

And the best part about cutting cake shapes - are the SCRAPS.   Yum!

​Then I made more cake batter (the same recipe that I used for the tie dye cake) and poured it around, inside and behind the star ring.  It was a bit messy - but it turns out - it didn't even matter.

​My 10 inch cake baked for 45 minutes!  That seemed like a REALLY long time to bake a cake but it just wasn't getting done in the center.

​Cool 10 minutes in the pan and then invert onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

​I love the creativity of 11 year old cake bakers and decorators.

Ciao!