I kept seeing these pretty pastel cakes with cute (but kind of ugly) frogs all over my Pinterest and TikTok, and with galentines looming, I decided to make a love-themed frog cake for my best friend and I to enjoy during our virtual galentines get together. First, I had to think of the cake itself. I chose a basic vanilla sponge recipe that I tweaked to make sure I would have enough mixture. Follow this recipe below to get the perfect vanilla sponge.
The Cake
Ingredients:
250g caster sugar
250g softened butter
6 medium eggs
4 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
250g self-raising flour
4tsp baking powder
Method:
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Preheat the oven to 180c and grease two cake tins well so the cake comes out easily when cooled
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Cream together butter and sugar until light and creamy
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Add the eggs, milk, and vanilla extract, and mix until well combined
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Sift the flour and baking powder and combine with other ingredients
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Spoon into the tins, making one small cupcake to form the frog, and bake for 30 minutes
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Cool completely before decorating
To make the frog, take the singular cupcake and mash until it looks like breadcrumbs, and mix in one tablespoon of softened butter and two tablespoons of icing sugar until the mixture is pliable. Mold the mixture into a ball and leave in the fridge for at least 4 hours to set completely.
The Icing/Filling
Ingredients:
800g icing sugar
400g softened unsalted butter
2 tbsp of raspberry jam
Method:
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Place the softened butter in a bowl and whisk for up to 3 minutes until light and airy
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Add the icing sugar to the butter in three lots to ensure a smooth consistency, whisking continually until the mixture is light and smooth
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Divide up into bowls and mix in food colouring in prep for decoration
When filling the cake, make sure to use a layer of buttercream and then one of jam to make it as mess free as possible.
Once you have filled your cake, use a small amount of buttercream around the whole cake to capture any crumbs before decorating it properly. Let this crumb coat chill in the fridge for 20 minutes before starting on the decoration. Your crumb coat should look something like this.
Before jumping straight into decorating the cake, I wanted to make sure I had a really good idea of what I wanted it to look like, so the night before I drew a quick sketch on my iPad of the design I wanted. I would highly recommend doing this as it gave me a really clear idea of what I needed to do and I didn’t feel as much pressure icing it as I could have.
Then came the fun part. This definitely was the most stressful part, even with help from my mum, especially trying to ice the frog without completely destroying it. However, I think I was quite successful in the end, but I’ll let you be the judge of that!
Tag us on your social media if you make the viral frog cake, we want to see your interpretations!