Introduction: Elegant Cake in a Crock-pot!

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About: I'm a single full time working mom, food enthusiast, and recipe day-dreamer! Try out my instructables! They are super easy to follow, have tons of photos, and are always delicious!!

This instructable will show you how easy it is to actually bake a cake in a crock-pot! This is great for hot summer days when you really don't want to turn on that oven! I will then continue on to show you how to frost and assemble a 3 layer cake using molded chocolates for decorations! This blue ombre beach themed cake is perfect for a summer birthday or get together!

Step 1: Set the Crock-Pot

Like an oven, you need to pre-heat your crock pot. Turn the crock pot on HIGH setting.

We need to add water and raise the cake pan to allow even cooking of the cake. You can use coiled aluminum foil, egg rings, or ramekins as I did here. You don't want to raise it too much as your cake will grow. I had to exchange my ramekins shown for shorter ones because my cake was touching the lid.

  1. Add two ramekins to the bottom of the crock pot to support the cake pan.
  2. Add about a half inch of water, put the lid on, and allow the crock-pot to get nice and hot!

Step 2: Make the Batter

I'm going to show you how to make an easy home-made cake batter. It's similar to a pound cake, but a little lighter. This recipe makes a LOT! I use it to make a 3 layer, 8in round cake. Feel free to use a different recipe or even a box cake mix!

Ingredients:

  • 9 Tbsp softened butter
  • 1 cup oil
  • 1 1/2 cup milk
  • 4 tsp vanilla extract
  • 10 egg whites at room temperature
  • 3 cups sugar
  • 4 cups flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 4 1/2 tsp baking powder
  1. In a large bowl, whisk together all of the wet ingredients.
  2. In a separate large bowl mix together all of the dry ingredients. Please note you need a BIG bowl! There is a LOT of cake mix here!!
  3. Slowly mix the wet ingredients into the dry. Mix until combined but make sure not to over mix.

Step 3: Divide and Color

In order to make a beautiful ombre coloring we need to divide and color the separate layers.

  1. Divide the mix equally into 3 bowls. There should be about 2 1/2 cups of batter in each bowl.
  2. Leave one bowl without color.
  3. Add some blue drops to the second bowl.
  4. Add 3 times as many blue drops into the third bowl.
  5. Mix the batters and add more dye as necessary. You can always add more but you can not take it out so go slow. You will use a LOT of dye to get it the right color. I used almost a whole small dropper bottle to get the colors just right!

Step 4: Prepare the Cake Mold

  1. Grease an 8in cake mold. Make sure you have a bakers pan with straight sides. If your pan even slightly flares out, your layers will not match up and you will be very disappointed!!
  2. Add a tablespoon of flour to the pan and tap it to coat the bottom and sides. Gently tap the pan on the counter to release extra flour and discard.
  3. Pour the first layer into the pan. You should use almost if not all of the batter if you divided it correctly. The batter should fill between 2/3 and 3/4 of the pan.

Step 5: Bake the Cake

  1. Place the cake on top of your ramekins.
  2. Wrap the lid tightly with a towel on the inside. The towel will collect any condensation that collects on the lid and prevent it from accidently dripping into the cake and ruining it.
  3. Place the lid on and cook on HIGH for 1 hour. Check the cake for doneness and continue to cook for an additional 20 minutes if necessary. My cakes took about an hour and 20 minutes total.

Step 6: Adjust to Correct!

Ahhh!! When I checked my cake after an hour the cake had risen and was touching the towel. The top was moist and funny! It's OK though!! I lowered the cake and continued to cook it. Luckily we will be cutting off the top, so this little hiccup wont harm our cake!

Step 7: Molding the Chocolate

While the cake is baking you will want to work on making your chocolate molds. I found an adorable set of shell molds online on amazon. They were cheap and worked perfect!

  1. Pour half a bag of white chocolate chips into a bowl.
  2. Microwave on high stirring every 30 seconds until the chocolate is melted. It is important to do this to prevent the chocolate from seizing on you. It should only take a minute and a half- two minutes to get it nice and smooth.
  3. Spoon the melted chocolate into a piping bag and cut the tip.
  4. Pipe the chocolate into the molds.
  5. On a piece of parchment paper, pipe out a coral of chocolate. Go over your lines a few times as it dries. This piece is EXTREMELY fragile so the ticker the better.
  6. Place the chocolates in the fridge for about 20 minutes to set.
  7. Once hardened, remove the chocolate from the molds and dust with white and gold luster powder with a brush.

Step 8: Cut the Cakes

In order to properly stack your layers, the cakes need to be flat and even.

  1. Start with your smallest layer. Set your cake cutter to the highest non rounded point of the cake.
  2. Slice the rounded top portion off all the cakes. You can save the scraps to make cake pops or to munch on as you would like as there is a LOT of waste when you make a layered cake!!

Step 9: Making the Frosting

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb room temperature un salted butter
  • 6 Tbsp heavy cream
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 6 cups powdered sugar
  1. In a stand mixer, beat together the butter, cream, vanilla and salt.
  2. Gradually beat in the powdered sugar.
  3. Once combined, beat on high for 5 minutes until nice and fluffy!

Step 10: Cake Assembly Part 1

  1. Fill a piping bag with the frosting and cut the tip off.
  2. Place a dot of frosting on the center of your cake plate to hold the cake in position as you frost.
  3. Starting with the DARK BLUE, place the cake cut side down in the center of the plate.
  4. Starting with the edges, pipe around the cake top with frosting and slowly spiral inward.
  5. Gently smooth the frosting.

Step 11: Cake Assembly Part 2

  1. Add the second layer, the MEDIUM BLUE cake on top making sure the cut side is again facing down.
  2. Again pipe frosting around the top and smooth.
  3. Repeat this with the final layer, the WHITE cake. Note: Part of my white cake stuck in my pan!! It's OK!! I simply filled in the gap with extra frosting. Nobody will notice! :)
  4. Apply a "crumb coat" of white frosting around the edges by starting with the bottom and slowly piping around and up until the edges are coated.
  5. Using a frosting scraper, smooth out the edges and remove excess frosting. You want to remove as much as possible without crumbling the cake.

Step 12: Frosting the Cake

  1. Top off the white piping bag with more frosting.
  2. Divide the remaining frosting into two bowls and add blue food coloring in the same fashion we did with the cake layers.
  3. Once you have reached your desired colors, put the two blue frostings into their own piping bags and cut the tips off.
  4. Starting with DARK blue one the bottom, pipe 2 rings of frosting around the cake.
  5. The third ring will be alternating dots of dark blue and light blue.
  6. Pipe 2 rings of light blue followed by a 3rd ring of light blue and white alternating dots.
  7. Finish with 2 rings of white frosting on the top.
  8. Using the frosting scraper, smooth the frosting and let the colors blend. Make sure to wipe off excess frosting and clean the scraper to get the proper effect. Add a few dots of frosting where you want more color as necessary.

Step 13: Add the Decorations

  1. Sprinkle gram cracker crumbs over the base plate around the cake and in the center of the top of the cake.
  2. Carefully place the coral in the back center of the crumb circle.
  3. Continue to add the chocolate shells on top of the cake and on either side of the cake as shown. Get creative! Do what you like!

You're done!!! Look how pretty it looks!!!

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