Galaxy Cake

We were having dinner with the inlaws to celebrate my son's 7th birthday, so even though he already had an Optimus Prime cake at his Transformers-themed birthday party earlier this afternoon, I had to make him another cake to have after dinner! What's a birthday celebration without cake, after all? Yes, yes I know, the kid is spoiled. Can't help it when his mom makes cakes all day long ;)

Galaxy Cake

I decided to make the kid a trendy Galaxy mirror glaze cake. What does this have to do with Transformers, you might ask? Well, Transformers are aliens that come from space, right? Hahah ok it's a stretch. I'm just using the occasion to practice the tips and tricks from the mirror glaze cake class I took last month!

love the eclipse shape

The cake is a green tea mousse, with a vanilla sponge center and a biscuit base. I was excited to use my brand spanking-new Silikomart eclipse silicone mold! First, I prepped the biscuit base by crushing digestive biscuits (graham crackers would work too) in a ziplock bag using a rolling pin. Then I mixed it with softened butter, and then pressed the mixture onto the bottom of a baking pan lined with plastic wrap. I stuck this in the freezer for an hour or so until it was solid enough to be lifted out in one piece. 

moulding the green tea mousse cake

I didn't have to bake up a new sponge cake cuz I always have extras in the fridge, so other than preparing the green tea mousse, it was pretty much just an assembly process. And the great thing about this cake is that really, there's no baking involved. (Great for me cuz I was really super busy this weekend, and we are staycationing for the kid's bday). 

Once the green tea mousse has been poured in the mold, I put in the layer of sponge cake, covered it with the rest of the green tea mousse and then put the biscuit layer on. Make sure to tap the mold on the counter a few times to release air bubbles, and, if you have to, use a small spatula and go back and fill in any small gaps at the sides. After that, I threw thing in the freezer, overnight. At least 4 hours is good, but overnight is best.

galaxy colours for the mirror glaze

Next, I prepared the mirror glaze. Man, glucose is a sticky, sticky thing!  I divided the glaze into 5 bowls and coloured it white, black, purple, pink and blue using gel food colouring. 

the unmolded cake, with rough edges

there we go. All smooth!

I had a bit of difficulty unmolding the frozen mousse cake, but I finally managed to release it in the end without having to throw the thing against a wall. (shhhh. frustrations!). I went around the edges with my fingers, trying to make the surface as smooth as possible, without melting the cake too much. I didn't have time to put it back in the freezer for another hour. 

creating a galaxy glaze

Anyway, I propped the cake up on a small bowl, and proceeded to pour the mirror glaze all over the surface, starting with black, and then adding small lines of white, purple and blue. (I didn't use the pink). Oh yes, remember to put a baking tray underneath the bowl to catch all that drip if you don't want have sticky sticky glaze all over your kitchen counter! Finally, I swiped the surface in a half-circle movement, using an offset spatula, to get the galaxy effect. I love how I was able to fluke some nebulas and black holes on the surface. 

lots of things going on in this galaxy!

After letting the excess glaze drip off and cleaning up the edges, I transferred the cake onto a gold cake board, and then sprinkled the top with the teeniest amount of fine gold dust, just by lightly tapping my big blusher brush over the cake from high above, which had some leftover gold on it from before. The effect makes it look like there are a million stars on the galaxy cake! And the lighting makes a big difference on how the cake shines.

shiny shiny glaze!

Galaxy mirror glaze cake with tiny gold stars

My son loved the cake! And my inlaws ooh'd and aah'd since they've never seen anything like it! (It's cuz they don't eat at trendy cafés or follow social media much...). Of course, it helped that the restaurant presented the cake on a plate, smoking with dry ice (and a bunch of plastic crabs, since we did eat at a crab place!). I took the liberty of placing my son's Optimus Prime and Bumblebee action figures amongst the crabs too. Happy 7th Birthday, my big, not-so-little-anymore little man!!

Happy 7th Birthday, Dominic!

A slice of Galaxy green tea mousse cake