Making a Batcake™

For this year’s Fifth Birthday, the request came in from Junior Management for a The Batman Birthday Cake. I was up late making it, but the effort paid off…

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My first mistake was not procuring enough of the Renshaw Ready to Roll icing. This meant that I spent several hours rolling and rolling the black fondant between two sheets of baking paper, turning it to avoid crinkling where the paper bunches up against the table, to stretch it thin enough to cover the cake. A long and anxious job, where for most of the evening I wasn’t sure I would be able to cover the cake! There may have been swearing during this time.

The general face shape and features were modelled on the Lego The Batman figure, and my regrets (aside from not purchasing enough black fondant icing) are limited to two points:

• I would rather have taken the time to inset the white eyes, but it was 2am and I couldn’t face the idea that the dye in the black fondant would discolour the white eye shapes. That black fondant is incredibly loaded with dye to get the deep black, it’s pretty hard to work with as it warms up as it becomes so sticky.
• The nose is too pointed. The Batman’s been in a few fights, and I think a flatter less aquiline nose would have suited the character better. 

My son couldn’t have been more pleased with it, though, so overall I’m satisfied I discharged my parental duties well.

Ingredients:

• Renshaw Ready to Roll icing in black, flesh pink, and white
• Renshaw modelling paste in black for the nose and bat ears
• The same chocolate fudge cake recipe I always use (it’s low faff and tastes delicious); I used smaller, 15cm (6”) cake tins, and it rose really well so just three layers worked out fine (and resulted in less leftovers). 
• Buttercream icing

I wonder what next year’s cake request will be!