Water Park Cake

I had a lot of fun making this cake and even more fun looking at the expressions of two little kids for whom I made this. (Please excuse the horrible pictures. My camera is acting weird and the real thing looked a million times better). This week my cousin left to India for good and I will really miss her. She was very close to me and we had spent the last three years together in Dubai. Her daughter had been asking for a water park cake for a long time and so I decided to make this for her as a farewell.

I saw the idea for this on the Woman's Day website and gathered all the ingredients. The entire cake is edible and finding candy that matches your theme is like finding gold. You can use all candy to decorate any cake and it looks so realistic.

The cake is a simple chocolate cake recipe that I love and the frosting is simply whipped cream with powdered sugar. I made piping gel (recipe below) successfully at home using gelatin and corn syrup. It tasted just like sweet syrup and looked so realistic in the swimming pool.

Here is how I made it -

Baked one recipe for a 9 X 13 inch cake in two pans. One 6 X 9 rectangle and one 7 inch round pan.

I cut the round cake and shaped it as a swimming pool (free hand). Using a fork I scooped out some of the cake to get a pool.

Both the cakes where chilled, crumb coated and chilled again.

Meanwhile I made the decorations. With royal icing I piped the shape of a ladder on wax paper and also two candy cane shapes and two small straight lines. The candy cane shapes and lines were late rejoined to make the steps that go in the pool.

I used liquid food color to paint the lines on the lifesaver rafts.

I added eyes on the teddy bears using nigella seeds (that was the smallest black seed I could find!)

After both the cakes where chilled, I placed the small pool on one edge of the rectangle and finished icing both the cakes. The remaining whipped cream was tinted blue and I piped small stars on the entire edge with a pastry bag fitted with a star nozzle.

To make the slide I used a striped sour belt candy and cupcakes. The cupcakes were trimmed, stacked and frosted using chocolate icing. The belt was then placed on it to look like a double bump slide. There were two stacks of cupcakes to give the bumpy effect. I then filled the pool with the piping gel (frost the bottom of the pool with cream first to prevent the gel from seeping into the cake).

 Place all the teddy bears and lifesavers around the pool and one on top of the slide. Fix the ladder and the steps at the end. Decorate with any remaining candy (I used Mn M's and fish shaped candy)

Recipe for Piping Gel

Ingredients

1 Tbsp Unflavored Gelatin

1 Cup Corn Syrup

1 Tbsp Cold Water

1. Sprinkle the gelatin on the cold water and set aside for 5 minutes.

2. Heat the gelatin till it dissolves (On very low heat, do not let it boil)

3. Add the corn syrup once the gelatin has dissolved and heat thoroughly for few minutes.

4. Remove from heat and cool completely.

5. Store in a cool place (Keeps for two months)