Welcome to How To Cook That, I'm Ann Reardon and this week we are making something super
fun, it's an Operation game cake that actually makes sounds!
This week's notification squad shoutout goes to Beautiful Nature.
For your chance at a shout-out turn on notifications and write 'done' in the comments so I know
that you have done so.
To make this crazy cake you will need flour, gelatin, baking powder, salt, sugar, cream
of tartar, egg whites, water, oil and egg yolks.
And I'll put all these recipe quantities on the howtocookthat.net website for you and
of course I'll put a link to that below.
To start with put the gelatin and the baking powder and the salt and the sugar into the
flour.
Whisk those together to get rid of any lumps and to aerate the mixture.
Make a hole in the centre just using your spoon to scoop it to the edges.
And then pour in the oil, egg yolks and the water and you want to not stir that, just
leave it as it is to one side.
Add the cream of tartar to the egg whites and whip them up on high speed until you get
soft peaks.
Now use your beaters to mix together the flour mixture on low speed until all those ingredients
are just combined.
Add in the egg whites and fold them carefully, scooping down to the bottom and up over the
top keeping as much air in your cake batter as you can.
Pour that into two trays and you want to bake those in the oven until they are done.
While that is baking let's make our strawberry sauce.
Wash and hull your strawberries then place them in a pan with strawberry jam and the
water.
And you want to stir that until it boils and then let it simmer until the fruit becomes
soft.
Turn off the heat and just leave that to cool.
Once your cake is cooled trim off the edges so that you have a nice rectangle.
Make up a double batch of my vanilla buttercream and again that recipe is on the website, and
I'll link you to that below.
Put a small amount of buttercream onto your cake board and add your first tray cake.
Brush this with vanilla simple syrup to keep the cake nice and moist and then cover it
in the buttercream, then add the next cake, brush that with simple syrup too then cover
all of the top and the sides with buttercream making it as smooth as you can keeping any
left over buttercream because you'll need that later.
Now on our game, we are only going to have 6 different sounds so you are going to need
to decide which ones they are going to be.
I am going for the heart, the arm, the ribs, the foot and the leg.
Now you want to cut those out to make it easy to mark where they are on the cake.
I'll put a pdf of this print-out on the website to help you.
Spread some tempered white chocolate onto some baking paper in the size of the cake
or just a little bit bigger.
As it is starting to set cut around the shape of your cake and then place your patient on
top and make incisions where you have chosen to operate.
Tracing around each one and then leave that covered with baking paper and a tray while
it sets.
Roll out some pink fondant and cut out the shorts shape remembering to cut out the horse
as well.
Now cut out little hearts from the shorts, now I am using a home made cutter - if you
want to know how to make your own cutters you can see my Twitter dessert video and I'll
show you in detail how to do it there.
It is very handy for things like this, when you want a specific size and you're probably
not going to use it again.
I'll link to that video at the end.
Now use the cutter to cut some red hearts in the exact same size of course and then
add them into place, sliding them from the top of the heart in first and then gently
pushing them down.
You can of course just trim the ones that are overlapping on the edges.
Keep a spare heart and squash it down a bit flatter and then cut down the middle in a
zig-zag to make it look like the broken heart that sits on his chest.
To make the Teddy cut around the shape out of light brown fondant and then cut out little
skinny triangles of fondant from around the edge to give his fur that jagged furry look.
Add a lighter coloured ball of fondant to his tummy and flatten that down.
And then add another one in place for his little nose and his feet and ears.
Use some black gel food colouring to paint on his nose, his mouth, his eyes and his eyebrows.
And then begin to outline the rest of the bear.
Use white food colouring to lighten the centre of the bandaid and add a highlight to his
eyes and a little bit on his nose.
Now use some powdered brown food colouring to add shading to the bear which just makes
it look a bit more 3D.
Add a little red fondant thermometer and he is ready to go.
Back to our white chocolate.
When I was trying to remove the little bits it cracked so I'd suggest that you take them
out while the chocolate is still soft.
So I am just repairing mine with a little more white chocolate and then taking out those
little spaces that we needed cut out now while it's still soft.
Roll out some yellow fondant and place it over the top of your chocolate.
If you have a silpat which is this silicon mat, rolling the fondant out on that will
give it a slight fabric texture.
Gently press on the fondant to find where the holes are in the chocolate and the edges.
Cut away the edges, then place the printout over the top to see where the yellow sheet
is supposed to come to.
Cut across just there and then remove the printout and extend those lines to the edges
and then peel off the excess yellow fondant away from the top.
Cut out each of the holes following the shape of your chocolate.
And then take that extra bit of fondant out.
Then draw a line across the top of your sheet and add little indents across the top for
stitching.
Now if you didn't have a silpat then you can add some fabric texture by making little indents
one way using your knife and then turn it 90 degrees and go across it the other way.
You don't need to do this over the whole thing, just in some patches and your mind will fill
in the blanks.
Just like on a cartoon building they only draw in some of the bricks and your mind just
assumes that it's a brick wall.
If they are too pronounced just give it a gentle little rub to bring it back a bit.
Add some blue fondant across the top of the bed and then trim the edges.
Using the rounded end on the back of a paintbrush indent the pillow shape, so you know where
it's going to go.
Then use gel food colouring to outline the pillow.
Use some watered down colour for the shadowing and then use black gel colour to shade behind
the pillow.
Using some fondant in the colour of his skin roll it out and cut around all of his body
and his hair.
Place that onto the cake and cut out the holes.
Add his shorts into place, just tucking it under his tummy there, and then cut out and
add in each of his legs.
Put some white fondant over his bandaged foot and then begin to outline the rest of him.
Now you could of course print this design using edible ink onto fondant or rice paper
and that would be quicker, but for those of you who don't have access to that this works
just as well and look better and brighter.
Use some red to outline the shorts and some silver mixed with lemon juice to outline the
holes. and don't forget to add his belly button.
Add some white fondant for his eyes and a little bit over the top for his eyelids.
Then paint the details on his face just like you did on his body, following what you can
see on the picture on the box.
If you do make any mistakes just wet a clean paint brush and gently rub the little bit
of food colouring that you don't want and then dab paper towel and it will come straight
off.
Add a rounded cylinder of red fondant for his nose.
And then using white food colouring highlight his nose, eyes, just under his eyes, a little
bit on his lip and streaks through his hair.
Again just looking at the picture on the box so you know where those highlights go.
Now paint on the pictures next to each hole of what is supposed to be in each one.
And then use the end of your paintbrush to make a hole for his mouth and add a snake
of red for the thermometer.
Put a ball of red on the top, outline that with white and then add the lines for the
scale up the thermometer.
Use powdered brown food colouring to add shading to the skin just like we did on the teddy
bear.
Speaking of the teddy, let's add him into place on the pillow just next to your man.
Now to make the cake make sounds.
I am using a really small cardboard box and Makey Makey which is a really easy to use
customisable board.
Draw on the side of your box where the space needs to be for the cord to come out and where
the wires are, with Makey Makey it comes with these white wires that you can push into the
base or with alligator clips.
You want to use the white wires for this because the clips are too long and bulky for inside
the cake.
Remove the areas that you drew with the knife and then pull the wires through the hole so
the board sits inside the box.
Then thread the earth wire and the computer cable through the other hole on the side of
the box.
Next you want to completely cover your box in tape to make it waterproof.
I am using wide packing tape and giving it a couple of extra coats all over the box and
around where the wires exit the box.
Now in one corner of your cake cut out a piece the size of the box and remove that cake.
Add the box into place with the wires pointing straight up and the computer cable and earth
wire coming out of the side.
Then cover that with buttercream.
For those of you who are concerned that you won't know where the box is when you go to
cut the cake the computer cable coming out of the side should be a good reminder for
you.
Temper some milk chocolate and spread it onto some foil making sure it is slightly bigger
than your cake.
Once it is starting to set place some paper in the size of the cake over the top and cut
around the outside like we did before.
Measure the position of the wires on your cake so you know how far in and how far up
they are sitting, and then find that location on your chocolate and cut out a circle using
the back of a piping tip.
Add some baking paper and place a tray over the top to help stop the chocolate from curling
as it sets.
Once it is set remove the foil and add it over the top of the cake feeding the wires
through the hole.
Now put some baking paper over the top and rest the white chocolate over that.
Draw on using a knife where each of your holes are, this is important that you get them in
the right spot, that is why we put the white chocolate on.
Then you can take the white chocolate off and mark them clearly with an x where each
of them are.
Twist the wires around and curve them in a circle, we are just trying to make them a
bit shorter, then spread them out, fan them out so they
are not touching each other.
Use some tempered chocolate to hold them into place.
Now we want to create a channel for our sauce so it can make a circuit with the wire, that
way we don't have wires through the whole cake, we can just have them all right here
next to the box so we can take that out in one piece.
I am using chocolate and Twizzlers to make the channels.
Remember you want one wire in each channel.
So that is two, three, four, five... where is six?
I've missed it, there it is!
Okay close that one off so there's one wire there and bring the other one around.
And you also want to add more around the edges and in the spare areas that's just to support
the white chocolate.
Puree your cold sauce to make it smooth so there's no lumps in it.
Then add sauce into each section, making sure your sauce goes all the way up to the wire.
Pipe some buttercream around the top and now add your white chocolate piece into place
to hide all the Twizzlers and the sauce.
Cut a strip of red fondant that's the height of the cake and rub it with a little oil on
top and then roll it up, place it on the side of the cake and unroll it, wrapping it around
to cover the edges.
And this just makes it look like edges of the game because they are bright red.
Add a snake of fondant all the way around the base just to make it super neat.
And then cut out tiny shapes to go in each of the holes, or if there will be lots of
kids wanting to have a go you could just avoid this step and use mini m&m's instead.
Now on your computer go to a website called scratch.mit.edu and sign up for a free account.
Once you've got that open, click on events and drag 'when space key is pressed' over
into the spot on the right-hand-side.
Click the arrow next to space and choose 'A'.
Now click on sound and drag 'play sound until done' over and join it underneath.
Press the arrow next to Meow and choose 'record'.
Press the circle button to record and say what you want it to say and then press the
square to stop recording.
Select any blank pauses at the start and end of your recording and delete them so that
our sound happens immediately when they touch the sauce.
Name your recording so you know which one's which.
And then click on the 'scripts' tab to go back.
Now when you press down next to Meow there, your new sound is there.
Next click on control and choose 'wait 1 second' and add that to the bottom.
This is just so the sound doesn't just repeat immediately, it gives a moment for them to
move onto the next one.
Keep doing that for a,s,d,f and g that is where are wires are pugged into on the back
of Makey Makey.
Then plug the computer cable into the computer with Scratch open and running and attach the
earth wire to tweezers.
And then it's time to play.
Hey, that's my heart!
You can of course customize the sounds to suit the age level at the party.
Are you some kind of quack!
Woah, it makes a noise, that's so cool!
"Ouch!"
"You're making me nervous!"
"He he, that tickles".
Click here for the recipe details, here for more of my videos.
Make it a great week and I'll see you on Friday!