Weekend baking – birthday piñata cake!

I saw this wonderful piñata cake on domestic sluttery a little while back. As the husband is a sweet fanatic, I just had to try and make it!

I went for half the quantities they did, as, actually, there weren’t going to be that many cake eaters – this was mainly to see my husbands face light up when he cut open the cake and saw all the sweeties. This seemed like a great plan at the time.

Basic sponge cake recipe:
6 oz caster sugar
6 oz unsalted butter (room temperature)
3 eggs (beaten, room temperature)
6 oz self raising flour

Line two 20cm tins and preheat the oven to 180ºC
Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. And the eggs a little at a time, beating well after each addition. Fold in the flour. If the mixture is a little thick, add a small amount of milk until it reaches a dropping consistency.
Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 mins.

Ta da!

Oh. Hm. My cakes never did rise very well!
The idea was to hollow out a bit of each cake and fill with sweets. But if, like me, your cake didn’t turn out quite right, there is a solution:

Cut up the cake and use jam and butter icing or frosting to build cake walls in which to put the sweets:


Then use the rest of the butter icing or frosting to cover up anything that needs covering up:

I made cake balls from the left over bits of cake, coated them in chocolate, and used them to try and make it look a bit more exciting on the outside:

Piñata time!