There is not such a thing as a mermaid party without a cake. In this post, we are going to show you how easy and funny can be to prepare the party’s wake element. This receipt is so easy that you can involve the little mermaids of the house in its preparation.
This post has two parts,
- Base preparation: The classical “yogurt cup” measures sponge cake which is probably one of the easiest and most popular cake recipes that has passed from hand to hand. You may find also some tricks and variations at the end.
- Decoration: Our selection of youtube tutorial to illustrate its decoration.
I personally like this sponge cake with lemon yogurt, because it gives a delicious touch that you can accentuate if you want by putting a little lemon zest, but if you don’t have lemon yogurt on hand you can also make it with a natural yogurt or other flavor.
Part One: Siren Cake base preparation
Before we start a thumb rule to remember this receipt. Remember:
- Measures 1, 1, 2, 3 (for those geek mermaids this is also the start of fibonacci sequence).
- order: 1 lemon yogurt, 1 measure of oil Sunflower, 2 measures of sugar, 3 measures of flour … And you are ready to go
I think what is very easy in this case is that you do not have to be weighing or wondering what kind of glass the recipe refers to or how many grams are this or that ingredient.
For a proper mermaid cake you may need 2-3 round sponge cake base, stick together with chocolate or buttercream.
Let’s start, the whole family will enjoy it!!
Ingredients:
- 1 lemon yogurt cup
- 1 yogurt cup sunflower oil
- 2 yogurt cup of sugar
- 3 yogurt cup flour
- 3 eggs
- 1 sachet (16g) of powder leavening or baking powder
- Butter or margarine to grease the mold
Instructions
The basis of this recipe is to take as a measure the cut of yogurt, which greatly facilitates the issue of ingredients. Ideally, use lemon yogurt because it gives it a special flavor, but if you do not have it, we could use a natural one and add lemon zest to add some flavor to the cake.
Preheat the oven to 356°F/180°C.
Put the yogurt in a bowl and keep the cup to measure the rest of ingredients. Beat the eggs with the sugar, and then add the flour. Sift the flour through a sieve or strainer and add the oil. Use an electric mixer, whisking after each addition of a new ingredient.
When we have a homogeneous and fine dough, pour it in a removable mold, to which we will have spread butter and sprinkled with flour so that it is later easy to unmold the cake.
Bake for 30-35 minutes at 356°F/180°C, or until we see that the tip of a knife comes out clean when pricked in the center of the cake.
Unmold and let cool.
Tricks for a perfect yogurt cake
Although this cake recipe rarely fails there are some tricks that may improve the result: rods blenders are more suitable than those with propeller, since the first ones introduce air into the dough, gaining in volume and fluffiness.
- Better if the ingredients are at room temperature; remove them from the fridge a little before starting. Usually butter or margarine should be at room temperature, just like eggs.
- The mold must have an adequate size and to use it for our mermaid cake, it has to be round. If it is very small, the cake will rise a lot, and will sink, and if it is very large, it is likely that it will stay flat and drier.
- The oven: Before starting, preheat the oven at 356°F/180°C for 10 minutes. If you have time heat up and “cool” down to 356°F/180°C, doing so, the heat will distribute evenly. Do not put it when the oven is cold because not having the uniform temperature the cake may not rise well.
- To ensure that the cake is juicy you can put a container with water inside the oven to provide moisture, also place the cake in the center of the rack, so that the same heat arrives from above as below.
- Never open the oven door for the first 20 minutes, and if you can, do not open during baking time, just look out the oven window.
The secret to a spongy dough
Spongy dough
If you want to get a spongy dough, you have to whisk the eggs with the sugar until they clear and the sugar granules are no longer noticeable.
Do not let the dough rest a lot once beaten, because again the air will disappear and it will cost more to rise.
Which flour to use
Use special flour for pastries and, very important is that, before using it, it is passed through a sieve to sift it and make it looser. If you throw the flour at once it is possible that, the cake will not rise well because it does not get the necessary air.
If you want to put pieces of fruit or chocolate chips to the dough, to prevent them from going to the bottom, you should pass them before by flour.
When it is done:
You can know that the cake is ready if, by pricking it in the center with the tip of a knife, it comes out clean. That is the best trick, but do not open the door early, because when you open the oven it loses temperature and your yogurt cake can deflate.
If you see that, the cake is already golden on the outside but the tip of the knife is still wet you can cover it with aluminum foil to prevent the crust from burning.
How to unmold it:
Once the cake is made, take it out of the oven so that it does not dry out, and when it is tempered, unmold it and place it on a rack so that it finishes cooling. Once cold, you can cover it with plastic wrap to preserve moisture and dry.
Mermaid cake decoration ideas
After preparing the bases, 2-3 bases are enough but you can prepare more depending on the number of assistants. Anyway stick your bases together using chocolate or butter cream and… Let’s go to the creative part of the work. Here in after you may see a selection of three Youtube video that we use as inspiration for our mermaid cakes. We have sort them from less to more difficult:
Additional you may use mermaid cake toppers available in specialist shops and in amazon, of course.