Cake "Dragon", the step-by-step preparation of which will be described in this article, is a culinary product in the form of this fabulous character. As you correctly guessed, cakes and creams can be any. The main task is how to fold the cake. After all, if you are not a sculptor, this will not be easy. But we will help you! If you follow our instructions, you will succeed. Cake "Dragon" will delight the little birthday boy and his friends. This dessert will also decorate the New Year's table, especially if we mark it on the Chinese calendar. The dragon cake will make the fire-breathing monster your patron. This winged beast gave the world prosperity and luck throughout 2012.
Cake Structure
The dough for the base can be anything but puff: biscuit, shortbread, gingerbread, honey, chocolate, nut. In principle, if you have the skills of a sculptor, you can make a Dragon cake from a cream in 3D. And while doing without a test. But to facilitate the task, we will prepare biscuit cakes. These products are not brittle, do not crumble, and with the help of a knife they can be given any shape. A cream is better to make oily. It coexists perfectly with food coloring (after all, the dragon is supposed to be green or fiery), keeps its shape well, it is easy for them to gloss over all the confectioner's flaws. Sponge cake can be made chocolate, honey or add nuts to the dough. Culinary fantasy with oil cream is also strongly encouraged. You can add a little mascarpone - for a curd taste. Or add condensed milk. For decoration, we will use all the edible improvised means: marmalade, marshmallows, marshmallows, colored dragees, Truffle sweets and, of course, mastic.
Cakes
In principle, they can even be purchased. The main thing is that there should be two cakes. In addition, they must be of different sizes. So let's bake them ourselves so that we get a very realistic dragon. We will make a cake from chocolate biscuit. Mix three eggs with 350 grams of sugar, beat them to a dense white foam. Butter (225 g) is slightly melted in a water bath. Pour into it a glass full of milk to the brim. In a deep bowl, mix three tablespoons of cocoa powder and the same number of spoons, but tea, vanilla sugar and baking powder for dough. Sift two cups of flour into this container. The dry mixture is gradually introduced into the egg foam. Pour milk and butter at the end. Mix. The dough is ready. It should not be stored for long. We need to make two cakes - 23 and 25 centimeters in diameter. We bake them at the same time. If both cakes do not fit into the oven, we make the dough in two steps, calculating the amount of ingredients in proportion to the size of the cakes. We cover the baking sheet with baking paper, and grease the walls of the forms with margarine. Pour the dough into them. We put in the oven preheated to 170 degrees. Bake for more than thirty minutes. The readiness of the cakes is checked with a hole or a match. If it comes out of the dough dry, then it’s ready.
Cake "Dragon": a recipe with photos step by step. Fragmentation
We are not in a hurry to take cakes out of shape. Let them stand from a quarter of an hour. Then they must be carefully, prying with a knife, removed and transferred to the grate. Leaving them to cool completely is not worth it, since the bottom of the cakes will become sour. We begin to collect our Dragon cake. The recipe from the photo shows that the smaller cake should be cut in half. But the difficulties are only beginning. Problems can arise with butchering larger cake. It must be "cut out" according to the scheme. Cut this cake in half. We divide one half into quarters. And both of these pieces of cake are cut lengthwise. As a result, we get two almost rectangular stripes (head and neck) and two sectors from the circle (hind legs). Now let's take on the cutting of the second half of the big cake. From the notch side, stepping back a bit from the edge, cut two smaller sectors with a knife. These will be the front legs of the dragon. From the rest of the cake, cut the tail of two fragments. If we follow the instructions, then we will “carve out” all the parts of the dragon correctly.
Cooking cream
Let it not upset you that the pieces of dough that are stacked on the dish so far have little resemblance to a mythical monster. “Dragon” is a cake that requires creative inspiration and imagination. Therefore, we proceed further, according to a step-by-step recipe. The cream can be prepared already at the stage of cooling cakes. Why did we choose oil cream? In addition to plasticity, he also well “sticks together” falling apart pieces of dough. After all, our dragon consists of fragments, and it will be insulting if it breaks up like a house of cards at the most inopportune moment. You can make butter cream in a couple of minutes. But for this, the oil (about 200 grams) should be completely softened, and in consistency resembling sour cream. Melt 300 g of white chocolate in a water bath. Beat butter with cream cheese "Mascarpone" or "Philadelphia." It will take about half a kilogram. When the mass becomes fluffy, add melted chocolate. We are working with the mixer again. To prevent the cream from being too sugary, add a spoon or two of lemon juice. Using a green dye, we achieve a uniform color of the required saturation.
Cake "Dragon" step by step: folding design
So, two cakes are divided into ten fragments. The most crucial phase in the preparation of the dessert is coming - its assembly. We choose an even dish on which we will serve the cake. We glue both halves of the small cake with cream. It’s better that he is still warm - so he’s better “grasp”. We put both halves together in the middle of the dish notched down. This is the body of the dragon. What to do next? The remaining details of our sculpture are placed next to the body, forming a dragon. This is not so difficult. Fragments resembling rectangles are placed on one side of the body, connecting the head and neck almost at right angles. On the back we spread, beautifully curving, two parts of the tail. Paws are also set in place, on both sides of the body.
Gluing fragments
Coat all parts with cream - both between the cakes and the outside. Do not apply it too much - before that comes the turn. At this stage, it is important for us that the dragon remains intact before serving. We put the cake in the refrigerator for an hour, so that all parts of the mythical monster are well glued together. We also send the remaining cream there. When it cools well, it will become more plastic. After the specified time, we get the workpiece and apply the remaining cream. There are several ways to do this. Beginning sculptors can be recommended to apply a plentiful cream and sprinkle it with coconut flakes. Get a little fluffy coat. If you have a pastry bag with a nozzle with small holes, you can squeeze the cream through it. In this case, the "Wool" should be laid artistically, imitating the scales.
Using mastic
This plastic material from powdered milk, powdered sugar and water is useful to those who feel like an almost professional sculptor. If we use mastic, tinting the cream is not necessary. But as a result, we will have a multi-colored dragon. The cake, or rather, its preparation, generously spread with cream, is covered with a sheet of mastic rolled into a thin layer. Cut the edges. With a cap from a plastic bottle we push through the scales. Cut out the nostrils with a knife. From the remaining mastic we sculpt wings and ears. On the body of the dragon we make incisions on the mastic, where we will attach these fragments. We breed gel food colors. Give our dragon a color. Using food glue or melted chocolate, fix the ears and wings. Golden kandurin bred in a few drops of vodka. We colorize the scales on their heads.
Finishing touches
With the help of mastic, you can make the “Dragon” (cake) look very realistic. The photo shows how you can decorate a product in which the top layer is cream. Eyes - marshmallows sweets, their pupils, as well as nostrils - chocolate dragees. Flakes along the ridge are Truffle candies. Claws can be made from pieces of marmalade. Try cutting wings out of a wafer sheet. With a certain degree of artistic talent, you will get not only a delicious, but also an original dessert.