Hey guys, it’s Ro, welcome to another Nerdy Nummies!
Today, I am super excited because the new Star Wars movie is almost out,
and I got so many requests from you guys to make something in
celebration of the new movie. So today, we are gonna be making a
Death Star Cake! I’ve wanted to make these for a really long time, I even
wore my Star Wars holiday sweater for you guys.
Look, we got the Death Star in the middle, we’ve got Taun Tauns and little
X-Wings, yeah, let’s get started!
The recipe that we’re gonna be using today is a butter cake recipe,
we’re gonna be making it from scratch, it’s from my cookbook, it's really simple and yummy.
The things you will need, will be: 1-1/2 cup flour, 1 cup and 2 tablespoons
of almond meal, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon of salt,
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract 4 eggs, 1-1/2 cups of super fine sugar,
1 cup and 2 tablespoons of whole milk, and then 1 cup and 2 tablespoons of
room temperature butter.
We’ll also need some mixing bowls, I’ve got 2 medium sized mixing bowls
and a little hand mixer. The things you will need to decorate
will be: 2 - 6 inch Sphere pans, the ones that I’ve got right over here.
These came together in a set, I found this one at Wilton, it is the 3-D Sports Ball
Pan set, and I wanted to show you guys what the box looked like so that
it would be easy to find, there’s a little baseball on the front,
basketball on the top, and this is the same pan that I used to make
the Earth Cake with. And dental floss, I know it’s a little bit weird
but I promise I will explain later.
An icing spatula, some icing, a little bit of black food coloring dye,
2 icing bags with couplers, and we’ve got some tips for a little bit
more control, for decorating. Alright, now let’s put it all together!
The first thing that we’re gonna do in a medium sized bowl, we’re going to
whisk together our flour, boop! Almond meal, baking powder, and salt!
And we’re gonna whisk together until everything is evenly combined,
and then we’re gonna set it off to the side.
The next thing that we’re gonna do is cream our butter.
So you’re gonna just take the butter that’s at room temperature.
Plop ‘em into our other medium sized bowl, mix it up until it’s light
and fluffy! Now we’re gonna add all of the sugar into the creamed butter.
Boooop! And we’re gonna mix it together for about 3-5 minutes, until it’s
very fluffy!
Oooh! Look at that, it’s so fluffy!
Now it’s ready for some vanilla, we’re gonna beat in our vanilla extract,
and then we are gonna add our eggs one at a time, keep mixing until
everything is evenly combined.
Now we’ve got our wet ingredients, and our dry ingredients all ready.
And now what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna alternate adding our dry
ingredients and the milk into our wet ingredients.
So we add a little dry, and then we mix it up, and then we add our milk,
and mix it up!
Little dry, mix it up!
A little milk, mix it up!
And the last bit of dry… And mix it up!
Mmmmm! Yummy, yummy yummy! It’s ready to bake!
So what we’re gonna do is take our 2 pans and we’re gonna grease them before
we pour in the batter. Over here I’ve just got a little bit of shortening,
and I like to take a little paper towel, and just grease the whole pan.
You can do this with butter too, but I like to use shortening.
Pour in our batter, doo-doo-doo-doo! I like to fill it up about
75% of the way. When you’re using this butter cake recipe you’re gonna
want to slow bake them, because they’re kind of an odd shape, they’re
very dense right in the middle.
Now our cake pans are filled and we’re gonna pop these in the oven at 325
degrees and we’re gonna bake them for 50 minutes, I call this the slow bake!
Once your cakes have baked and had plenty of time to cool, now we are gonna
level them using a serrated knife, and I’ve popped the cakes into the fridge for a few
minutes to chill so that when we’re cutting them, they won’t
be as crumbly! Take the serrated knife and hold the bowl, and then using the
top of the pan, laying the knife flat, move back and forth.
Just go doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo!
Oooh! Then you have a little snack!
Hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm! Mmmm!
Mmmm!
Oh that’s good, oh!
I need to stay away from that.
Oh, that’s gonna mess up my beach body now!
Once the cake’s leveled we’re gonna take it out of the pan.
What I like to do is I do the Jackhammer Jiggle!
I don’t… I Just made up that name, I really don’t know a better name for it.
But it’s not doing a big up and down movement, because sometimes if the cake
is lightly stuck to the side of the pan it will rip, so you just keep
the motion really small, right in here, and it looks like a Jackhammer.
Ready, set, go!
Dig-uh-dig-uh-dig-uh-dig-uh-dig-uh-dig-uh-dig-uh!
And then it just will pop out.
Now that we’ve got our cakes leveled, I’m gonna cut a little bit off the
bottom to stabilize our cake, because it is going to be a round ball,
and that could move around.
So you’re just going to take one of the halves, and the serrated knife,
and just cut a little bit. Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo!
And then over here, I’ve got my final cake stand, so pick whatever plate
or cake stand you want to display your cake on.
And below it, over here I’ve got a little turntable, to make it easier
to decorate. So I’m just placing that right on top.
Then take your second cake, place it right on top, just to see if it’s
gonna match up, oh good!
Before we ice our cake, we are gonna cut out a little cavity, right here.
For the Super Laser Focus Lens, this is the Death Star weapon, we all know it!
And what I’m using is a little ice cream scoop, for positioning, it’s a
little bit above the equator of the Death Star, so, right about there.
I’m just pressing it into the cake to create a guideline.
And then I’m using a smaller serrated knife, and I’m just going to
gently cut out my design.
Over here, I colored my icing to be the color of the Death Star, all I
did was I took a little bit of decorator icing, added a few drops of black
and then I mixed together until it was the color gray that I wanted.
Really easy, and, I added a little bit of water, so that the icing would be
a little thinner and easier to spread.
First thing that you’re gonna do is take off the pretty top of the
Death Star, Ohhh noooo!
The top kind of looks like BB-8 doesn’t he? Looks like his little head.
You’re gonna take some icing, put it in the middle of the cake, we're gonna spread it
flat, this layer of icing is gonna act as an adhesive for our top to stick
to the bottom. Then you’re gonna take the top of the cake, place it
right on top.
Now we’re gonna ice the cake, I’m gonna be putting a thick layer of
icing all around our Death Star Cake, so that I’ll have a lot of
wiggle room for any imperfections. It will be really easy to hide any
of these little lumps or crumbs.
So you’re just gonna take a big helping of icing, just glob it on there.
Does it look like the Death Star has hair?
Look, we can give him a Mohawk!
And then we just start to spread evenly, doo-doo-doo! All the way around!
I’m gonna take this spatula, and run it around the bottom of the cake
to taper it in so it really looks like a circle.
It’s really easy, let me show you how to do it, you just take your little
spatula, and you’re not gonna move your hand, and you’re just gonna put
a little bit of pressure. And this is where the turntable really comes in
handy, because you just gently go around. Doo-doo-doo!
We let our cake sit out and crust over, you’ll know that it’s ready
when you touch the top of your cake and the icing won’t be tacky anymore,
it won’t be sticky.
I did this without thinking, so I apologize, but I did put a link down below,
So if you want to see how to use parchment paper to smooth out your cake, I
have a video down below of how to do it. And also, I’ll just show you really briefly
right here. You just cut a small little piece of parchment paper, place it
on top of your cake. And then gently rub, I like to do little circles.
Little circles, little circles, all over the cake to make it look smooth.
Our final decoration step is to pipe on some details.
This is gonna make our cake really look like the Death Star.
And this part is totally up to you, whether you want to make this easy mode
or hard mode. If you want to pipe just a few basic detailed lines,
it will be easy mode. Or if you’d like to pipe every single trench on that
Death Star, you can, so it’s all up to you, whatever you’d like.
Because I’m gonna be free handing and piping these details myself,
this is where we’re gonna use the dental floss, to get some even lines.
You’re gonna take a little piece of floss, like this, and, we’re gonna
pull it tight, so it’s got a lot of tension.
Pull the floss all the way around and then you're gonna slowly turn your cake and
pull out the floss.
Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo! Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo!
And that just gave us a nice outline for the equator around our
Death Star Cake. Mmmmm!
Again, I took another piece of floss and I went around the bottom to make
the mid-hemisphere trench right down here.
And then the top for the polar trench, what I did is I just looked around my
kitchen, I found a bowl that was about the right size, and I just lightly pressed
it down on top of the cake.
Alright, now that we’ve got our guidelines set, now I’m going to freehand,
I’m going to pipe some of the details onto our Death Star.
We got our decorating baggie, with a number 6 tip.
Starting with, the polar trench, around we go!
Just finished piping the main trenches, and I just took a little toothpick
and I just traced a line all the way around, and then I’m gonna trace
them and ice them with a number 3 tip, I switched the tip at the top.
Once I’m done piping these lines, I’m gonna be adding a lot more details
and lines to make it look like the Death Star.
And this is where it’s up to you whether you’d like it to be easy mode,
or hard mode, you can add as many details as you like.
Or, as time allows. If you’re making this for a birthday party or a themed
like, viewing party and you want it to be super detailed, or you just kind of
want a minimalistic Death Star Cake, it’s up to you!
Ta-da!
Our Death Star Cake is fully operational!
We added a lot of detail, I’m gonna spin it around for you guys
so you can see. Weeee-oooooo!
We’ve got command sectors, city sprawls, hangar bays, we got it all, we
even have a giant laser!
I’ll be posting lots of pictures on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter.
And if you guys make this cake, please take pictures and send it to me!
I would love to see your baking creations!
Or if you have any other ideas for any other Nerdy Nummies, please let me
know, leave me a comment down below and I will do my best to make it happen!
Also, I got a lot of questions about what types of icing I use on
different treats. So, I teamed up with Wilton, and I made a video over
on their channel, I’ll put a link down below so you can go check it out.
And it’s all about different icings and when to use them.
And, a big thank you to Wilton for partnering with me to make this video.
I’m so excited! I wanted to make this Death Star Cake for so long
and it was the perfect time!
Alright, I hope you guys enjoy it, bye-bye!