Two-tier cakes are an indescribable splendor that very few people risk getting in their kitchen. Yes, and people agree to buy such a feast of the stomach only on very significant occasions, which include a wedding, the first birthday of the child, his admission to school and, of course, the end of it. Most of the housewives are not even confused by baking - which of us does not deal with it! However, the assembly is scared and the need for great decoration. We’ll say right away that if you build a two-tier cake from mastic, you can easily cope with the first fear: even without additional design elements, it will turn out to be neat and elegant. And how not to spoil the results of many hours of work at the assembly stage, we will tell you in detail in this article.
DIY mastic
In some stores, this mass can be bought. But if you conceived a delicious, beautiful and fresh two-tier cake, it is better to make a mastic with your own hands, especially since the process is not very complicated. Grams of two hundred marshmallows in the form of sweets are taken (marshmallows are very suitable). Sweetness should be dense, chewing, not airy and soft. If the sweets are long, they break, fill with a couple of tablespoons of water and put in a steam bath, where they melt into a viscous mass with continuous stirring. Then powdered sugar is gradually sprinkled (the total amount is four hundred grams) until a smooth “dough” is obtained. If you need color mastic, in the middle of the process, dye of the desired shade is poured along with the powder. When finished, rolled up into a ball, it practically does not stick to your hands and does not break like plasticine. To prevent a lump, they wrap it with cling film and hide it in the refrigerator.
The basis
The cakes from which bunk cakes are assembled are traditionally baked biscuit and thick. You can probably make a solemn dessert from thin, of different origin, but they will keep the shape of the design much worse, and soak for longer. Two cakes are made; the top should be at least half the diameter so that the "steps" were well expressed. Tastier and more interesting if the ingredients are baked according to different recipes. However, the same cakes are also not bad, if you layered them with different fillings. The following recipes are recognized as the most successful and compatible with each other.
Chocolate sponge cake "Kanash"
With it, two-tier cakes are especially tempting, since it really includes chocolate. Black tiles with 72% cocoa content (800 grams) are taken, broken into pieces and melted in a steam bath. A good butter (half the dose of the mass of chocolate) is first crushed with two glasses of sugar, and then whipped until a steady splendor. A dozen eggs are driven into the mass; mixer operation does not stop. Next comes a spoon with a generous slide of soda (quenched with vinegar or lemon juice), then two tablespoons of cocoa and four glasses of flour are sifted into the dough. When the mixer makes the mass homogeneous, hot chocolate is poured , it is finally kneaded and hidden in the oven for about an hour with heating to 175 degrees.
Vanilla Chiffon Sponge Cake
Another version of cakes with which any two-tier cake is simply irresistible. The recipe will require some effort, but the result of its embodiment just melts in your mouth. Two cups of flour are sifted into a large bowl, one and a half cups of sugar are poured, vanilla to your liking, three tablespoons of baking powder and half - salt. Six eggs are divided into yolks and proteins, the first are sent to the dough, the second are cooled and whipped with dense peaks with crystals of citric acid (it, like salt, is taken half a spoon). Non-cold water is poured into the dry components, a little more than half a glass, and exactly half of this capacity of vegetable oil. When everything is kneaded to homogeneity, proteins interfere gently from top to bottom with a wooden spatula, the dough is distributed in shape and hidden in the oven at an ordinary temperature of 180 Celsius for an hour, maybe a little longer. The first 40-50 minutes you can’t open the door, otherwise the biscuit will settle.
Sour cream
All two-tier cakes contain some kind of cream. Universal is considered to be made on the basis of sour cream: it is not very fatty and heavy, but can be combined with any biscuits. It is prepared in an elementary way: two glasses of fermented milk product are taken in a glass of sugar, for about five to seven minutes the mixer is turned on and you can smear it. It is better to take sour cream not too greasy, with a 15 percent it turns out a completely elastic cream. If desired, it can be flavored with vanilla.
A few words about the filling
Cakes for the conceived "tower", as already mentioned, are baked thick. To make them juicier, they are carefully cut horizontally into two or three plates and soaked - it can be with ordinary syrup, or with special impregnation, for which two tablespoons of sugar are dissolved in a stack of hot water, the liquid is combined with half a glass of berry or fruit syrup and a stack of rum ( cognac). This mixture is especially successful if a two-tier wedding cake is being prepared. During collection, individual plates are folded into the initial cake with a spread of cream and the spread of pleasant additives between them. For "adult" options, for a wedding or anniversary, dried fruits (raisins, prunes, dried apricots) and nuts are most often used. If your cake is two-tier - for children, then canned fruits or berries from jam will be more appropriate. Especially successful is the use of peaches and cherries. Candied fruits and slices of marmalade are also good. Anyone who fears that his cake is two-tiered, lovingly made with his own hands, because of the impregnation will be too sweet, can do only with cream between the plates. Only then should it be smeared more generously.
How to assemble correctly
When all the ingredients of the food are prepared, it remains only to fold the cake so that it does not sag, the top does not move out, and the base does not come together. Since both floors are quite heavy, there are certain secrets how to achieve a beautiful view. To begin with, each cake collected from the layers is coated with cream on all sides and sent for a while to the refrigerator for soaking. At this time, a mastic rolled into two unequal parts rolls out in a thin layer. The larger circle is neatly placed on the bottom cake and leveled. Mastic evenly and smoothly flank the sides. The excess edge is cut off - not very high, since it can shrink and get a little torn after. The same manipulations are done with a smaller portion of the cake. Now, so that your two-tier cake from mastic does not fall apart, take 4-5 skewers equal to the height of the lower cake and vertically stick into it. A substrate is cut out of cardboard, a centimeter two smaller in diameter than the upper "floor", and placed on these supports. A second cake is placed on top of the two shoulder blades.
It remains only to decorate your work of culinary art. If you bake a two-tier wedding cake, you can buy the main decorations - swans, hearts, figurines of the newlyweds - and supplement them with roses twisted from mastic and painted with colored cream. For children, you can bake funny gingerbread figures, color them and paint the “landscape” with whipped cream. There is already - complete freedom of creativity and free flight of imagination!