Lion Cake Recipes

LION CAKE

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees with racks in center. Butter two 8-by-2-inch round cake pans and one cup in a jumbo muffin tin; line bottoms of pans with parchment; butter parchment. Dust pans and muffin tin with cocoa; set aside.
• Sift cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into mixer bowl. On low, stir in eggs, buttermilk, hot water, oil, and vanilla; beat until smooth, about 2 minutes, scraping bowl as necessary.
• Fill prepared muffin tin 3/4 full, using 3/4 cup batter. Divide remaining batter between two pans. Bake, rotating once, until tester inserted in center comes out clean, 45 to 55 minutes (25 minutes for cupcakes). Let cool on rack 20 minutes; unmold and cool completely on rack, right sides up.
• With serrated knife, trim cake layers level. Place one on a cake round, trimmed side up, then place on a turntable. With offset spatula, smooth 3/4 cup caramel buttercream over top. Top with remaining 8-inch layer, trimmed side down. Thinly coat top and sides of cake with 1 cup buttercream. Refrigerate until frosting has set, about 20 minutes.
• Apply a smooth layer of buttercream to the cake. Slice top third of cupcake off, discarding the bottom; place the top on the cake, slightly off center. Coat cupcake top with buttercream, using offset spatula to create a smooth mound. This will become the snout of the lion.
• Place cake so the snout is closest to you. With a toothpick, sketch the lion's face. Refrigerate the cake.
• Fit five 12-inch pastry bags with couplers and Ateco tips. We used star tips such as No. 16, No. 22, No. 30, and No. 35 for the mane, and a small round tip such as No. 3 for the face. Divide remaining buttercream into 5 batches. Tint one dark brown, and place in bag with No. 3 tip. Tint the others four shades of orange; place in other four bags.
• Pipe outline of face on cake with brown buttercream. Pipe swirls of orange buttercream for mane. Stick licorice whiskers into cake; refrigerate until serving.

HOMEMADE LION CAKE

Steps:

• For the caramel:
• In a deep container with a thick bottom, heat the sugar until it caramelizes. Pour in the cream thats been heated to boiling point.
• Add the vanilla , butter and salt. Cook the caramel sauce on low heat a little bit more until you get a smooth, homogeneous mixture.
• For the cake:
• Melt 10.5 oz (300 g) of chocolate in a water bath. Next, place a large sheet of rice paper at the bottom of a container so you can easily remove the cake, smear the bottom with a bit of the melted chocolate and arrange a layer of wafers .
• Do the same for the remaining wafers until you run out of melted chocolate, you will need a total of 3 wafer crusts.
• In the meantime, melt the remaining chocolate in a water bath and add the rice crisps, stir and once the caramel sets, pour the caramel on top of the cake, smear it and put it in the fridge. Serve cut in pieces.
• Optionally, you can dip each of the pieces in melted white chocolate .

FIRST BIRTHDAY LION CAKE

Steps:

• Heat oven to 350°F (325°F for dark or nonstick pans). Grease with shortening or cooking spray bottom only of 1 (6-inch) round cake pan and place paper baking cups in 16 regular-size muffin cups.
• In large bowl, beat cake mix, bananas, oil, water and eggs with electric mixer on low speed. Beat on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally until smooth. Place 1 3/4 cups batter in 6-inch round pan. Spoon remaining batter into 16 lined muffin cups. Bake round cake 35 to 40 minutes and cupcakes 18 to 23 minutes or until toothpick inserted in cake comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to cooling rack. Cool completely, about 30 minutes.
• In small bowl, beat cream cheese and yogurt on medium speed with electric mixer until creamy and smooth. Stir in yellow food color until mixture is desired color. Place 3 tablespoons of yellow frosting in small bowl; add orange food color to get desired orange color.
• To frost and decorate cake, slice 6-inch round cake horizontally to remove rounded top. Place cake cut side down on plate. Use yellow frosting to frost top and sides of cake. Use orange frosting to make muzzle of lion. Place cereal around top edges of cake to form the lion's mane. Add brown candy coated pieces for eyes. Insert pretzel sticks into cake near muzzle for whiskers. Use brown decorating gel to make mouth, nose and whisker spots on the lion face. Use remaining frosting to frost cupcakes. If desired, use cereal to decorate the cupcakes. Store cake and cupcakes in refrigerator.

LION CAKE

Steps:

• Cream fat and sugar together then beat in eggs, yoghurt, essence and sifted dry ingredients. Continue beating for about 3 minutes until well mixed. Spoon one third of the mixture into opposite sides of cake tin. Then spoon another third into a small bowl and add a few drops of red colouring. Blend cocoa to a paste with a little boiling water then add most, but not all, to the remaining third of cake mixture. Spoon cocoa mixture into the tin in two sections, again opposite each other, and finally fill in the spaces with the pink mixture. Swirl it round once only so that the colours stay separate, hollowing out the centre slightly.Bake at 190?C / 375F / Gas Mark 5 for about 50 minutes until cooked through when tested with a skewer. Turn out carefully and cool on a wire tray. Prepare the butter icing by beating the softened butter with the icing sugar until really light and fluffy. Add a tablespoon or two of hot water to make it lighter in texture. Split the cake in half then sandwich together with the jam. Take out one spoonful of the icing then add a small amount of the reserved cocoa paste to the remainder so it becomes a beige colour. Completely cover the cake in this icing. Now take a brush and dab strokes of the remaining cocoa paste at random over the icing to roughen it up and add texture and colour. Place the cake on a board or plate. Using a sharp knife, cut the Flakes into thin pieces, reserving any particularly long bits for the whiskers. Arrange the Flake pieces around the edge of the cake for the lions mane, making it as full as possible. Place a Button in position for the nose and build up the face around it, with the whiskers and a small piece of Flake where the mouth is, so that the tongue can roll over it. Using the plain icing, mark out two shapes with a teaspoon for the eyes, then place Buttons on top. Roll out and cut 2 circles of marzipan for the ears, using a glass as a guide. Elongate one end, pinch it together in the centre and cut off the point so that ear shapes remain. Place in position. Colour some marzipan red to make the tongue and a small piece black for the mouth, or use cocoa and make the mouth dark brown. Roll out the red marzipan, make a tongue shape and place it over the small piece of Flake already on the cake. To complete the cake, work a thin roll of dark marzipan for the mouth and place in position so that the lion smiles. NOTES : Its bound to be a roaring success at the party !

LEMON CAKE FROM SCRATCH

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter and flour two 8-inch cake pans, tapping out excess flour.
• Whisk flour, lemon zest, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together in a bowl.
• Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl using an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat eggs and egg yolks, 1 at a time, into creamed butter mixture on low speed, beating well after each addition before adding the next. Beat lemon juice into butter mixture. Beat flour mixture, alternating with buttermilk, into butter mixture until batter is just combined. Divide batter between the prepared cake pans.
• Bake in the preheated oven until cake pulls away from sides of pan, 32 to 35 minutes. Cool cakes in pans for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edges of pan and invert cake onto a wire rack to cool.

HAPPY LION BIRTHDAY CAKE

Steps:

• Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Use a little of the butter to grease the sides and bases of two 20cm sandwich tins. Melt the rest of the butter in a small saucepan. Off the heat, add the milk, yogurt and vanilla, followed by the eggs. Beat well with a fork.
• Put the dry ingredients plus ¼ tsp salt into a large bowl. Whisk to combine - this aerates and saves sifting. Tip in the wet ingredients and whisk to a smooth, silky batter.
• Don't hang around at this point. Pour the batter evenly into the prepared tins and put onto the middle shelf in the oven. Bake for 25 mins or until risen and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cakes comes out clean. Cool for 10 mins in the tins, then carefully invert the cakes and leave to cool upside down on a cooling rack.
• Make the buttercream. Put the butter into a large bowl and sift the icing sugar on top. Add the vanilla and milk and a pinch of salt then beat for a few mins with electric beaters until creamy, pale and spreadable.
• Place one of the cakes onto the board or plate, and use a dab of buttercream underneath the cake to stop it slipping about. Spread with 1/4 of the buttercream and then all of the jam, if using.
• Sandwich the second cake on top. Set aside 1 tsp buttercream to affix the ears later, then mound the rest on top of the cake. Use a palette knife to paddle it evenly over and down the sides. Set aside.
• For the lion's mane and cheeks, use a little of the colouring paste to colour the sugarpaste yellow or orange, then split the paste in half. Add more colouring paste to one half and knead again to make it a shade darker. Roll two walnut-size balls of the darker paste to make the cheeks. Poke in the spaghetti to make whiskers, then set aside.
• Using a little icing sugar, roll out the rest to about 2 x £1 coin thickness then cut into 12 squares measuring about 4 x 4cm. Re-roll any trimmings. Shape two small blobs into ears.
• Position the squares around the cake, alternating lighter and darker yellow. Let the squares overhang the cake slightly with only the innermost corners meeting. Scatter the chocolate sprinkles into the gaps in-between.
• Unroll a Catherine wheel. Cut two lengths of 20cm. Loop one end of each piece, then position on the cake to make the eyes and sides of the lion's nose. Poke into the buttercream. Add another strip of liquorice down the centre of the nose and a wiggly line to one side to give it some shadowing, if you like.
• Make the bottom of the nose by snipping ever-decreasing lengths of liquorice and poking them into the buttercream.
• Add two more curls for his mouth and two for eyebrows. Position the round cheeks to the sides. Put the middles of the Catherine wheels towards the bottom of the eyes to make pupils.
• Put the cheeks onto the lion's face. Fix the ears on top using a small blob of leftover buttercream. Leave the cake to set for an hour before cutting. If the sponges are used fresh or within a day of baking (wrap well once cooled), the finished cake will keep in a cool place (not the fridge) for 3 days.

CARAMEL BUTTERCREAM FOR LION CAKE

Steps:

• Make caramel: Combine 1 1/4 cups sugar and 1/2 cup water in medium saucepan; bring to boil over medium-high heat. Brush down sides with damp pastry brush to prevent crystallization. Continue cooking, without stirring, until dark amber color. Remove from heat; slowly stir in cream with wooden spoon until completely smooth; set aside until cool to touch.
• In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter until fluffy and pale. Transfer to a medium bowl.
• Whisk together remaining 1 cup sugar and egg whites in clean bowl of mixer. Set over pot of simmering water; whisk gently until completely dissolved, about 3 minutes.
• Transfer bowl to mixer stand. Using whisk attachment, beat on medium speed until fluffy and cooled, about 10 minutes. Increase speed to high; whisk until stiff peaks form. Reduce speed to medium-low; add butter 1/4 cup at a time, beating well after each addition. Whisk in vanilla.
• Switch to paddle. Add caramel; beat on lowest speed 3 to 5 minutes. Leave at room temperature if using same day. If making ahead, refrigerate in airtight container up to 3 days. Bring to room temperature; beat until smooth.