PJ Masks Cake
PJ Maks Birthday Cake an Easy DIY layered birthday cake idea for a little boys or little girls birthday party
Servings: 1 Cake
Calories: 596kcal
Ingredients
- Cake
- 2 x 340g vanilla cake mix
- 6 x eggs
- 160 g butter
- 1.5 cups milk
- Icing
- 625 g butter
- 7.5 Cups icing sugar
- 200 ml milk
- 2 x 180g packs m & ms
Instructions
- In addition to the edible ingredients, you will also need: 20 cm round cake tin (2 cake tins are even better) Cake mixer or Electric beater, Baking paper, 3 x bamboo skewers, piping bag with large nozzel, PJ masks figurines
- Preheat your oven to 160 degrees Celsius (or the temperature recommended on the packet directions of your cake mix, if you have a double oven and 2 cake tins that are the same size then heat 2 ovens, as this will reduce total baking time if you can bake 2 layers at a time
- Prepare the vanilla cake as per packet directions, I combine the 2 packs to make a double batch. The number of eggs and amount of butter and milk I have listed were what was required for the cake mix I used, yours may differ slightly. The first quantities of butter and milk listed are for the cakes, the second quantities are for the buttercream icing
- Once you have a double batch of cake mix made, divide this into 6 small/medium mixing bowls (I didn't have enough, but my soup/cereal bowls were fine for the job. I used scales to divide the mix, and found I needed to weigh out approximately 250 g of batter per bowl, this should give you 6 pretty even quantities. If you don't have scales I found it was around 1 and ¼ to 1 and ½ cups of batter per bowl
- Use the food colouring to colour the six layers, you will want: Dark blue, light blue, dark green, light green, red and pink (I used blue gel colouring for the 2 blue layers, Green gel colouring for the dark green layer and a combo of green and yellow colouring for the light green layer. I used red gel colouring for the red and pink layers. I found the cakes bake to about the same colour as the batter, so colour your batter to what you want the final colour to be.
- Grease and line the cake tins, pour one colour into a tin, bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, I found 18 minutes was perfect. I checked readiness with a toothpick. I was abe to bake 2 layers at a time as I had 2 tins
- Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, before turning out onto a cooling rack. I left the baking paper on the base of the cakes. I found this made moving them around for assembly easier with the baking paper on
- Wash the cake tins, and repeat until you have all the 6 layers completed. The cake baking can be done in advance, so at this stage you could freeze the cake layers ready for assembly on another day
- This step is optional but does give the cake a little more wow factor. Trim the edges of your cake. You can either use a round cake cutter (it's a bit like a cookie cutter but much larger) or take a bread and butter plate that is just slightly smaller than your 20cm cakes. Place the plate on top of the cake and use the plate-edge as a guide to trim the cakes with a knife.
- Prepare the buttercream icing. The butter must be at room temperature and soft, but you do not want it melted either
- Cube the softened butter and beat until it is as white as possible
- While the butter is beating, sift the icing sugar and bring the milk out of the fridge so it comes up to room temperature
- Add approximately ⅓ of the sifted icing sugar to the butter, beat. Then add approximately ⅓ of the milk and beat
- Alternate adding the sugar and milk until it has all been added
- Check the consistency of the buttercream, you can add a little more milk if you feel it needs to be softer to work with
- Find a large plate or cake board (the plate or board you plan on presenting the cake on
- Place a little buttercream in the center of the plate/board and lie the dark green layer on top, the buttercream at the bottom will help to make the cake more stable
- Fill a piping bag with a large nozzle with buttercream. Use the piping bag to pipe a spiral of buttercream on top of the dark green layer, you want the entire layer to have an even spread of buttercream. You could use a spatula if you prefer to add an even/thick layer of buttercream
- Place the light green layer of cake on top, and again completely and evenly cover the top of the light green cake. Repeat in the following order: Dark Blue, Light Blue, Red, Pink. Before you add the final buttercream layer to the top of the cake, take 3 bamboo skewers and insert them into the cake from the top down, this will help hold the cake together.
- Decorate the top of the cake with blue, red and green m & ms and the PJ mask figurines, scatter any leftover m & ms around the cake
- Serve the cake. Don't be nervous about slicing it. I find the easiest way is to tdo a slice from top to bottom. But then slide your knife between layers to pop them apart and lift out on to plates
Notes
- I use gel food colouring as I find the colours more vibrant, and you need less
- Buttercream ratios are 125g butter : 1 ½ Cup icing sugar : 40 mls milk (I needed 5 quantities of buttercream, but there was some left over, so you may get away with 4, depending on how thick you apply it)
- Icing sugar is also known as confectioners sugar or powdered sugar
- 340g cake mix is a 1 pound cake mix
- I used Betty Crocker Vanilla Cake Mix
Nutrition
Serving: 1g | Calories: 596kcal | Carbohydrates: 72g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 33g | Saturated Fat: 20g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 10g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 123mg | Sodium: 467mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 58g