Hey guys, it’s a me, Mari-Ro! Welcome to another Nerdy Nummies!
I got so many requests from you guys to make something Mario themed, and I’ve been getting
a lot of requests from you to make another Surprise Piñata Cake.
So I thought, let’s combine these things, today we are gonna be making a Mario Question
Block Surpise Cake.
With some edible gold coins inside!
Let’s a go!
The cake that we’re gonna be making today is a Lemon Cake recipe, I thought this would
be perfect because the Question Boxes are yellow, and I love baking with Fresh Fruit,
yum-yum-yum-yum-yum!
The things you will need, will be…
Oh no!
Dee-dee-dee, da-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee, da-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee, da-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee…
Feeling great!
Oh it went in the sink!
1-1/2 cups of cake flour, 1 cup of all purpose flour, 1-1/2 sticks of butter, 4 eggs, 1-1/4
cup milk, 1-1/2 cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, 1/2 a teaspoon of kosher
salt, 2-1/2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of lemon extract, and the zest of
2 fresh lemons.
Also, side note, for the size of cake that we’re making today, I am gonna be doubling
this recipe.
Now let’s put it all together!
The first thing that we’re gonna do, in this bowl we’re gonna whisk together our
dry ingredients, cake flour, regular flour, salt and baking powder.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah!
Next thing that we’re gonna do is mix our oil into our milk.
Whisk it up and set it off to the side.
Now in a large mixing bowl we are gonna cream together our butter and sugar, using a hand
mixer we're gonna mix together until it’s light and fluffy.
Now we’re gonna be adding our eggs 1 at a time, mixing in between each one, and using
a spatula to scrape down the sides.
Add our lemon extract, and now we’ve gotta zest 2 lemons.
Just gonna hold the zester over the bowl, put it on top and grate down, just like you would grate cheese.
And don’t jiggle your bowl.
You want to get all the yellow off the lemon, but not the white, when you see white you’re good.
Do this to both your lemons.
Then we're just gonna give it a quick mix.
This is all mixed up, now we are gonna alternate adding our dry and wet ingredients.
Pour in 1/3 of the dry, mix it up.
Then 1/2 the wet, mix it up.
Another 1/3 of the dry, mix it up.
The second half of the wet, mix it up.
Finishing with dry, mix it up.
Our cake batter is ready to bake, and over here I have got 3 square 6x6 inch pans, and
at the bottom of each of them, I’ve cut a piece of parchment paper, and greased them.
I’m gonna evenly divide our batter in between these 3 cake pans.
This is like Mario Kart!
Bewm-bewm-bewm!
Watch out it’s a Koopa shell!
Using a small offset spatula, I’m just gonna even out our batter.
These cakes are ready to bake and now we’re gonna pop them in the oven at 350 degrees
and bake them for about 45 minutes.
And just a reminder, you will want 6 cakes total, so I’m gonna be doing this again.
After your cakes have baked, give them plenty of time to cool.
As you can see, I have leveled them using a cake leveler, and I’ve got 6 cakes.
For any surprise cake your center layers are gonna be hollowed out, because that’s where
you keep your surprise.
But we’ll keep 2 of the cakes as they are for our top and our bottom.
I’m gonna take 4 of our cakes over here, place them onto our cutting mat, and cut out
the center.
Because my cookie cutter is dull, I’m not gonna press it down into my cake, it’s just
gonna crumble, so I’m gonna be using a small, sharp cutting knife and just eyeballing it,
tracing around my shape.
Gently pop out the center.
Then we’re gonna do this to the rest of our cakes.
Oh yum…
The cakes are all ready to assemble, and in front of me, I have got a square cake plate,
right now is the time where you want to choose where you cake is going to live.
I’ve got some yellow buttercream frosting in a plastic baggie and just cut off the end.
I’m just gonna put a dab right in the middle.
Take one of the solid cakes as the bottom, pipe a thin layer of frosting around the edge
of the cake.
Then take one of our hollowed out layers and place it right on top.
Then we’re gonna do the same thing with our remaining 3 layers.
We’ve built up our cake and before we put on the top layer, we have got to fill our surprise
or piñata cake with some candies.
When I’m playing Mario games, I always get excited to see question blocks because I never
know what I’m gonna get, it is always a surprise.
You don’t know if you’re gonna get a 1-Up Mushroom, a Power Mushroom, a Fire Flower,
or, some Gold Coins!
If you guys haven’t seen these candies before, it’s just a chocolate candy, wrapped in
a gold foil.
Now I’m gonna take all these gold coins and fill up our cake.
I’m gonna be filling my candy all the way to the top.
Once all the candy is inside, we’re just going to frost an outline, and place our second
solid cake onto the top.
Using the yellow buttercream frosting, I’m going to frost the entire cake, starting at the top.
Our cake decorations are fairly simple today, we’re gonna be using white fondant, this
is marshmallow fondant, in front of me I’ve got some wax paper that I’ve taped
down to the counter top.
I’ve got a little fondant cutting tool, a rolling pin, a small circle cookie cutter,
and, I made this template in photoshop, I’ll put a link down below if you want to use the
same one I did.
I printed it out on a piece of craft paper, or card stock paper, you want it to be a little
bit thicker because it’s acting as a stencil.
First thing that we’re gonna do is roll out our fondant.
Anywhere between 1/4 and 1/8th of an inch thick.
Now place your question mark stencil on top of the fondant, I’m using this little fondant
cutting tool, but if you don’t have one of these, you can just use a small sharp cutting knife.
1 question mark and 4 circles is enough decorations for 1 side of the cake, but because we have to
cover 5 sides of the cake we are gonna need 5 question marks and 20 circles, so I’m
gonna do this….
4 more times!
Math!
We’ve got all of our fondant decorations over here, and now it is time for my favorite
part, it is time to decorate!
We are gonna be placing them all over the cake.
Each side of the cake will get 1 question mark in the middle….
No!
Too much water!
And then, 4 circles in the corner.
Ta-da!
Here is the Mario Question Block Surprise cake that we made today!
A big thank you to you guys for suggesting something Mario themed, and for suggesting
another Surprise, or Piñata Cake.
I love this cake, I think it’s perfect if you’re having a Mario themed party of any sort.
I’ll be posting the recipe and a bunch of pictures on RosannaPansino.com, Instagram,
Facebook and Twitter, so you can check them out there.
If you guys make this cake, please take a picture and send it to me, I love seeing your
baking creations, it just makes my day, it makes me happy!
And, if you have any other ideas for any other Nerdy Nummies, let me know, leave me a comment
down below and I will do my best to make it happen!
Alight, let’s cut this open!
Yes!
Oh my gosh, you guys have to see this!
That is so cool!
You can see all the Gold Coins in there!
Oh man, we got a little traffic jam in there!
Alright you guys, bye-bye!