Making a Brain cake is fun, cheap and great for Halloween parties or get-togethers. This is a basic instructable to show you how to make the details for this cake, the size and shape depends on your preferences. You can do similar designs for cupcakes or even flat cakes depending on what best fits your needs. This cake is made from two 8 inch pan cakes that were cut and assembled together to make a more realistic brain cake. The gore is also optional, although it does make the cake look more grusome and realistic.
Step 1: Ingredients
Here are the Basic Ingredients that you will need, however depending on what kind of cake mix or cake recipe you use it will vary.
1. Cake Mix + necessary ingredients (follow the instructions on your recipe or box)
2. Frosting (we bought ours but feel free to mix your own
3. Mini Marshmallows (a whole package preferably)
4.Powdered Sugar
5. Cake dye, especially the colors green and red.
6. Oil (to grease your hands with later)
1. Cake Mix + necessary ingredients (follow the instructions on your recipe or box)
2. Frosting (we bought ours but feel free to mix your own
3. Mini Marshmallows (a whole package preferably)
4.Powdered Sugar
5. Cake dye, especially the colors green and red.
6. Oil (to grease your hands with later)
Step 2: Mix and bake the Cake
Follow the directions on your box/ recipe and mix together the cake. We separated ours into two 8 inch round pans for this cake, but you can make any size or shape you want. A good tip is to place the bottom of the pan on parchment paper and draw out the shape of it, then cut this out. Grease the pan as usual, and place the parchment cut out on the bottom of the pan. Then grease the paper and pour the cake batter over it. Basically this guarantees that the cake will come out of the pan much more easily than normal.
Cut the cake to shape and cover it with a layer of frosting. The frosting will act as a glue and will hold the fondant onto the cake.
Cut the cake to shape and cover it with a layer of frosting. The frosting will act as a glue and will hold the fondant onto the cake.
Step 3: Melt Marshmellows
Now that the cake is done, its time to make the fondant. If you have fondant mix you can use that instead of making your own, or you can buy fondant from stores like Joann's. My Marshmallow fondant is completely edible and basically tastes like super sweet marshmallow taffy.
1. Place a large amount of marshmallows into a microwavable bowl. (you will need a lot more than this for a large cake, I am just making a sample here)
2. LIGHTLY sprinkle the marshmallows with water. Please do not add too much water. just lightly moisten the marshmallows with a little water so that they cook better.
3. Melt the marshmellows in the microwave. I would put them in for 30 secs, stir and then place them in for another 30 seconds to completely melt them.
1. Place a large amount of marshmallows into a microwavable bowl. (you will need a lot more than this for a large cake, I am just making a sample here)
2. LIGHTLY sprinkle the marshmallows with water. Please do not add too much water. just lightly moisten the marshmallows with a little water so that they cook better.
3. Melt the marshmellows in the microwave. I would put them in for 30 secs, stir and then place them in for another 30 seconds to completely melt them.
Step 4: Make the Fondant
Ok this is kinda of difficult and involved but if you have ever made bread you might be familiar with some of the steps here.
1. First sift the powdered sugar onto a large board and make a mound in the center. You really need to sift this stuff, it looks super fluffy but it has alot of little clumps that you normally do not notice. However these clumps are a major problem when making fondant because they make it bumpy and uneven.
2. oil your hands with the cooking oil of your choice, you could also use butter, crisco or any type of grease for this job. Basically you are greasing your hands so that the sticky marshmallows do not stick to you.
3. get a friend to scrape the melted marshmallows onto the mound of sugar, then dump lots of powdered sugar ontop of it. It should be completely covered.
4. gently kneed in the sugar until it gets a thicker consistency. maksuge you keep it well covered in sugar and keep your hands well greased.
5. Once it is thick enough to not run all over the place, kneed it much harder and you would for bread dough. Basically to kneed you use the bottom of your palms to push the dough forward and then use your fingers to pull it back to center. Do this over and over agian applying more sugar as it soaks it all up.
6. when the sugar dough turns to the consistency of soft taffy then it is done.
1. First sift the powdered sugar onto a large board and make a mound in the center. You really need to sift this stuff, it looks super fluffy but it has alot of little clumps that you normally do not notice. However these clumps are a major problem when making fondant because they make it bumpy and uneven.
2. oil your hands with the cooking oil of your choice, you could also use butter, crisco or any type of grease for this job. Basically you are greasing your hands so that the sticky marshmallows do not stick to you.
3. get a friend to scrape the melted marshmallows onto the mound of sugar, then dump lots of powdered sugar ontop of it. It should be completely covered.
4. gently kneed in the sugar until it gets a thicker consistency. maksuge you keep it well covered in sugar and keep your hands well greased.
5. Once it is thick enough to not run all over the place, kneed it much harder and you would for bread dough. Basically to kneed you use the bottom of your palms to push the dough forward and then use your fingers to pull it back to center. Do this over and over agian applying more sugar as it soaks it all up.
6. when the sugar dough turns to the consistency of soft taffy then it is done.
Step 5: Color and shape fondant
Seperate your fondant into small tennis ball shapes and then rip them open with your fingers. Add equal parts of green and pink to make a realistic brain color. kneed and mix the fondant until the colors evenly mix and are fully incorporated. You can also make some piles have more pink than green and others be grayer and darker.
roll the fondant into thin strips of various lengths and thicknesses.
roll the fondant into thin strips of various lengths and thicknesses.
Step 6:
carefully place the fondant strips one at a time onto the cake. start with one end and then swirl the rest of the length around to create S and G shapes. each length of fondant will create a little cluster of brain. add the next length right next to the cluster you have created and use the same technique to make more clusters. Do this untill the entire cake is covered in clusters. You can also add a brain stem which is a oblong ball shape and is placed on the lower half of one side of the cake.
There will be small areas of white frosting in between the layers, this can optionally be covered with fake blood.
There will be small areas of white frosting in between the layers, this can optionally be covered with fake blood.
Step 7: Fake blood
Add dark corn syrup with red dye to create a blood mixture. here is a little sample I made to show you what the right color will look like. If you can only find clear corn syrup add some blue or purple in to creake a darker color. You will need a lot more of this to cover a whole cake. Also you can add flavorings to this mixture if you like.
Use a spoon or butter knife to drip the blood into the cracks so that you can cover the white frosting up. You can also spread it onto the plate to give the cake a very gory appearance.
Use a spoon or butter knife to drip the blood into the cracks so that you can cover the white frosting up. You can also spread it onto the plate to give the cake a very gory appearance.
Step 8: Done!
Please post your pictures! I will add some more of my own. I stuck in some knifes to make it look more scary.
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Just as a point of note, my cake was pretty big & I made my own marshmallow & there was HEAPS of it. It tasted great making it myself but be warned, it makes the process of turning it into a taffy like consistency a VERY painful job, with the recipe I went with, it took about 8 packets of icing sugar (powdered sugar) to turn get it to how I needed it. The whole decorating process took me hours & I was pretty exacting with the blood. But in the end major success, I was happy as was the birthday boy! Also took a chunk out where a "zombie" had bitten into it.
Also used heated jam instead of frosting to stick it to the cake.
the kids loved it. Thanks for the idea.
Maggie
*Two boxes of cake mix
*Three bags of marshmallow
*A bag and a half of powdered sugar
*Two and a half containers of frosting
That might just be my inexperience . . . But it was HUDGE! Ha Ha. Otherwise it was a major success. Great Cake!
Could I use the regular oven instead ?
Will it work the same way ?
I guess you have to be a zombie lover at heart to truly enjoy this!
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Thanks for the idea. It was a winning entry in our office "creepy dessert" contest.