DIY Pop Tate's Milkshake Cake From Riverdale

I'm a HUGE fan of the show Riverdale, and wanted to make something to represent that. Pop Tate's milkshakes are featured in many of the shows, and always look so delicious! I figured that making a cake shaped like a milkshake wouldn't be too hard -- all I had to do was cut a couple cakes and put them together to look like a milkshake. Easy, right? I found out after thinking about it though, that my original idea, (to cut a sheet cake like the glass and a round cake like the whipped cream), was going to be too big to store easily and would "waste" (not really, but we would have a lot of cake pieces left over!) more cake than necessary. With a little help I came up with an idea that would work and fix both of those problems: just use one sheet cake.

Step 1: The Cake

I used a yellow cake recipe for my sheet cake. I split this recipe in half because it yields two sheet cakes.

Instructions: (Full recipe)

• 3 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon of baking powder
• 3 cups of white sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 4 cups of cake flour (*I just used 4 cups of all-purpose and sifted thee times, but the conversion is 1 cup all-purpose to 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of cake flour.)
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups of whole milk

Instructions: (Half recipe)

• 1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1 1/2 cups of white sugar
• 2 cups of cake flour (*See note above)
• 1/8 teaspoon of salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
• 3/4 cups of milk

Step 2:

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 325°F and grease and flour your pans.

Step 2: Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt, sifting three times if using all-purpose flour. Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla, then beat in the eggs one at a time.

Step 3: Beat the flour mixture into the butter mixture in three additions alternating with the milk and beating after each new addition, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. (Flour > Milk > Flour > Milk > Flour)

Step 4: Bake, rotating halfway through, until the *tops spring back when lightly touched, and a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the cake. This should take about 40-45 minutes, depending on what type of oven you have. Let the cake cool completely, then cut frost.

*See reflection; very important!!

Step 3: Cutting the Cake

Finally! Your cake is cooled, and it's time for my favorite part; the decorating!! I spent a lot of time measuring my template for cutting the cake, and it was really useful. Unfortunately, after using it I couldn't save it because it collected the grease from the top of the cake. Just cut your cake to the shape you sketched out; you will probably have orts (pieces of cake) left over that can be used for smaller additions in certain places in your design. Then, make a very shallow, thin line with a bread knife so you could tell where the "glass" is separated from the "whipped cream."

Step 4: Frosting Your Cake

After refining the edges, make some pink frosting to represent the strawberry shake showing through the glass, and then take a little of the pink when you're finished and turn it red using food coloring (I find that gel works best). Next, take a plastic bag and cut the tip just a little so that a thin enough line of frosting comes out that you can write with it. Just print or bring up a picture on a computer, of Pop's logo and pipe your frosting to look like it. For the "whipped cream" part you could you actual whipped cream or a buttercream frosting, but for both frostings I used Portsmouth Frosting. You could use a piping bag, or just cut a hole big enough so you can fit in a piping tip with out it falling out, to make your "whipped cream" part. Finally, add a couple of straws so that they stick out at slightly different angles, and your cake is finished!!

Portsmouth Frosting Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup salted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup cream
• About 3 cups of powdered sugar (depending on how thick you want your frosting)
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla or rum (I found that if you want to make your frosting white, then this ingredient isn't really necessary to the flavor and also makes the outcome a very noticeable off-white color)

Step 5: Reflection

I'm really happy about the way my cake turned out; this is probably one of my best looking cakes so far! My cake didn't cook all the way in the top middle, so I scraped it off (It was a very thin layer), but make sure you don't completely rely on the toothpick test; make sure you test the springiness. If your cake, when lightly touched, does not resume its former shape then your cake needs longer to bake. The thing that threw me off and made me think that it was done, was that the edges were browned, peeling away, and when I inserted the toothpick it came out clean, but after seeing how little of the cake top was under-cooked, I realized that it had just needed a bit longer. In addition, I don't make yellow cakes that often and didn't have a sheet cake recipe, so this was my fist time trying this recipe. Overall though, I think that this turned out really well and I hope your sheet cake is fully cooked. (;