Lightning McQueen Cake

This is a 3-layer of chocolate cake, with chocolate ganache filling, a thin vanilla crumb coat, and red fondant.

So... This came out poorly.

This was largely due to time constraints, which made it difficult to undertake a task like this. We only had roughly an hour each day for four days, and a day was skipped in between.

But if their is anything that went well with this cake, is it tasted pretty good :)

This cake requires an extensive list of ingredients.

Fondant

• ¼ cup butter
• 1 (10 ounce) package of miniature marshmallows
• ¼ cup water
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• A LOT of confectioner's sugar (4 pounds should do it)
• Red, orange, and pink food coloring

Cake

• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
• ⅛ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 3 large eggs
• 2 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter (softened)
• 1 cup coffee

Ganache

• 1 ¼ pounds bittersweet chocolate (finely chopped)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter (softened)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon water

Buttercream Icing

• ½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
• 1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons milk

Tools

• Stand mixer (with applicable bowl)
• Spatula
• Dough hook
• Mixing attachment
• 3 rectangular cake pans (9 1/4 x 5 1/4)
• Parchment paper
• Oven
• Rolling Pin
• Cling Wrap
• Pyrex cups (1 cup and 2 cup sizes.)
• Apron
• gloves
• 2 small bowls
• 1 large bowl

These steps were not great. They made a mess, and made the process longer than necessary. They did eventually make decent fondant, but the effort was still moot, as the fondant became crumbly and dry by the time it came to actually covering the cake 3 days later.

1. Microwave marshmallows for 30 seconds in 2 cup pyrex dish
2. Pour melted marshmallows into large, deep, casserole dish
3. Add vanilla extract, water, and orange food coloring to casserole dish, and whisk
4. Add some pink, and a little red food coloring (it will look orange-red)
5. Add confectioners sugar slowly, and stir with spatula until it becomes too thick to stir without destroying the muscles in your arm
6. Pour semi-thickened dough into stand mixer bowl
7. Continue adding sugar while mixing, until the fondant eventually becomes relatively hard and dry
8. Put on gloves
9. Dip hands in butter and begin to knead
10. Form into 3 balls and cling wrap.

Fondant is a pain.

These are the amended steps, after doing it once

Tips:

• Wear gloves!
• Apron too!
• Do everything in the stand-mixer bowl!

1. Pour marshmallow bag in large microwave safe bowl and microwave for 1 minute
2. Pour melted mallows into mixing bowl
3. Mix vanilla extract and water with doughhook and add red, as well as a small amount of pink and orange coloring until bright red
4. Mix confectioners sugar in slowly. Continue adding sugar periodically until the dough becomes fairly dry and hard
5. Rub hands with butter, and knead - it is very important at this stage to have gloves and an apron in if you haven't already.
6. Knead fondant until very smooth, into one large ball
7. Cling wrap and set aside

This cake actually came out pretty good. It doesn't even need an amended list of steps!

1. Preheat oven to 325
2. Line the 3 pans with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray
3. In stand mixing bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt
4. Put butter in another small bowl with hot coffee
5. In 2nd small bowl, whisk buttermilk, eggs and vanilla together

In summary- you should have 3 bowls; The mixing bowl with dry ingredients, a small bowl with a buttermilk-egg-vanilla mixture, and one more small bowl with coffee and butter

1. Using the electric mixer, beat half buttermilk mixture into dry ingredients, followed by half the coffee mixture, then scrape down sides
2. Add in remainders and mix until fully incorporated.
3. Carefully pour batter evenly in each of the 3 pans
4. Bake for 30 minutes, and test to make sure cake is finished, if not just add more time at 5 minute intervals
5. Let each layer cool in its' pan for a few minutes, then place each layer on small cooling racks, and freeze for 1-2 hours to toughen cake - if cake isn't sufficiently cold, it will crack or crumble when stacking

Do the next two steps before the cake finishes cooling

It was tasty, and came out smooth. That's all that needs to be said.

1. Put chocolate into large bowl
2. Bring cream and corn syrup to boil in a small pot
3. Pour cream and corn syrup over chocolate, cover in foil, and put in a warm place for roughly 3-5 minutes
4. The chocolate should be melted or mostly melted
5. Whisk until smooth
6. Whisk in butter until incorporated
7. Stir frequently, and refrigerate briefly (20-30 minutes) until ganache becomes thick

Easy!

Last step before all the elements are finished!

The easiest among them!

1. Cream butter in stand mixer with mixing attachment
2. Beat in confectioners sugar until incorporated
3. Beat in vanilla extract until incorporated
4. Add milk and beat until smooth

We ran out of confectioner's sugar, so it came out a little grainy, but since this will be used for crumb coating, it doesn't even really matter!

We're at the end!

You should have

1. A bunch of red fondant
2. 3 cold layers of chocolate cake
3. A bowl of chocolate ganache
4. A bowl of buttercream icing

From here on it becomes more difficult. Up to this point it's all been directions, but now it requires some self instruction

Substep A - Finishing Cake

1. Cover 2 layers in ganache - make it thick. It can be surprising how much goes on each layer, but it needs to be thick enough to look like a real layer, rather than a thin strip
2. Stack the cakes on top of each other. Odds are, it will look pretty ugly like this - it's fine.
3. Now it's time to cut. Cut it... into the shape of a car. Round out the sides and shape it just like my guy McQueen. Don't throw away the cake scraps. Put them in a bowl, and set them aside.
4. Put the cake onto a new plate, just to get any of the crumbs out of the way

Substep B - Fondant

1. Take a frosting spreader or spatula and thinly cover the cut cake in buttercream frosting. It's very important that this layer is very thin and even, as it allows the fondant to stick, and smooths out the cake. Don't worry about using it all, in fact, the remainder will be used at the end.
2. Roll out the ball of fondant into a relatively thin and even sheet
3. Carefully cover the entire cake with fondant

Now you should have the cake, covered in one smooth layer of bright red fondant

Substep C - Décor

1. Cut out any irregularities from the fondant. Make sure it's smooth.
2. Cut out 4 semicircles for wheels
3. Shape some of the cake scraps into circles and place them into semicircles
4. Wash off spreader, and use buttercream frosting for a windshield, as seen in photo
5. Add very small rolled scraps of cake for eyes

This is where we finished, in the nick of time, I may add, but from here more décor is definitely needed. Add stripes, an actual spoiler, etc. But from here is on you.