Giant 14 LB Acorn CAKE! _ How To Cake It with Yolanda Gampp
**Creating a Giant Acorn Cake: A Step-by-Step Guide**
In this detailed video tutorial, the creator shares their passion for baking and decorating a giant acorn cake. The process is both intricate and creative, showcasing the artistry behind crafting a cake that mimics the shape and texture of an acorn. Here's how they did it:
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### Introduction to the Giant Acorn Cake
The video begins with the creator expressing their desire to bake a giant acorn cake, inspired by the fall season. They clarify that it’s not a confectionery mistake but rather a labor of love. The cake is crafted using ten and a quarter pounds of chocolate cake, baked in three seven-inch round cakes and one nine-inch round cake. After baking, cooling, and chilling, the creator removes them from their pans and begins the process of leveling and layering.
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### Baking and Preparing the Layers
The creator explains that they will only level two of the smaller round cakes, leaving one with its natural hump intact for added texture. The largest cake remains untouched, with its hump still in place. They carefully round out the edges on both the top and bottom to achieve the desired shape. By referring to the acorn in two parts—the body and the cap—they ensure that each section is shaped to resemble a real acorn.
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### Shaping the Acorn
The creator emphasizes that acorns have a distinct shape, with a point at the top tapering off. To mimic this, they stack all three smaller cakes one on top of the other, ensuring the layers remain round but slightly tapered at the top. The creator humorously mentions the challenge of capturing the elusive acorn for study due to squirrels’ frantic behavior, likening them to secret agents.
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### Frosting and Structuring
Next, the creator moves on to frosting the cake using hazelnut butter as a substitute for peanut butter in their frosting recipe. They explain that the frosting is stiffer than usual to hold the structure of the acorn. The creator also mentions crumb-coating both parts of the cake with chocolate ganache, which not only enhances flavor but also helps in keeping the shape intact.
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### Fondant Work and Texturing
The creator rolls out chocolate fondant, which they prefer for its natural brown color and rich taste. They carefully drape it over the body and cap of the cake, ensuring no air bubbles are trapped. For texturing, they use strip cutters on the body to mimic the vertical ridges of an acorn. The cap is textured differently using gum paste leaf cutters, creating intricate designs reminiscent of dragon shells or Game of Thrones eggs.
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### Painting the Cake
The creator paints the cake using brown gel food coloring and clear alcohol, ensuring the texture is preserved while adding depth. They also use a fog gel to mimic the weathered appearance of an acorn’s surface. The stem is crafted from darkened chocolate fondant, shaped with tools like a sculpting knife and a grass piping tip.
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### Assembly and Final Touches
Finally, the creator assembles the cake by attaching the cap and stem using a wooden dowel and ganache. They reflect on their experience, noting that gravity still plays a role in keeping the acorn together. The video concludes with an excited announcement about a fall sale offering discounts on baking tools and supplies.
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### Closing Remarks
The creator signs off with a playful reminder to never eat shredded wheat and encourages viewers to explore more cake recipes. The video ends with a cheerful “you know where to head,” inviting the audience to learn more about baking and decorating.
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This step-by-step guide captures the creativity and dedication required to craft a giant acorn cake, showcasing the blend of artistry and technique in modern baking.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey yolanda hey orhan you know what i thought about the fall i thought i should cake a giant acorn i still think of it yeah so once again it's an acorn not a con to make my giant acorn cake i am baking ten and a quarter pounds of my chocolate cake i baked three seven inch round cakes and one nine inch round cake and now that they're baked cooled and chilled i've removed them from their pans and i'm going to begin to level and layer them however i'm only gonna level two of the smaller round cakes one of them i'm going to layer with the hump still on and then for my biggest round cake i'm leaving on the hump i'm not layering it and i'm going to begin to round out the sides from now on i'm going to refer to the acorn in two parts there's kind of like the body of the acorn and then there's the cap like an acorn looks like it's wearing a beret almost you know what i mean it's definitely a fall nut is it actually a nut let's not get into it let's not get into it let's not get into this so for the bigger round cake hump is on not layering it and then i'm going to round out the edges i'm doing this on the top edge all around and the bottom edge all around now i'm actually going to add a hump from one of my smaller cakes and carve it down until i get the shape i want my three smaller cakes i'm going to stack them all one on top of the other so i have the layers of the two cakes that i leveled and then i'm gonna put the layers of the last cake that i didn't level so now i have this little just show the footage because this is what i want is like a little bit of a pointy top and i still want it to remain round but i need to taper it a bit at the top you know how acorns are just like everywhere at one point and then they're gone yeah i think you think i feel like the squirrels like go to battle for all the acorns and then they're just gone squirrels are so like they only have two moods they're either like completely frantic or they're statuesque you know many times i'll see a squirrel and i'll think it's like a squirrel statue because they're so still or they're freaking out they're very like like up the tre like they're they're they're crazy they're crazy i've never seen a squirrel just like casually walk down the sidewalk never seen it now it's time to simple syrup all the layers of cake and all the parts of cake and i'm also going to make a hazelnut frosting which is basically my peanut butter frosting which is already delicious but i'm gonna swap out the peanut butter for hazelnut butter isn't there an acorn spread or something no yes yes auron we've all secretly been eating acorn butter you haven't had acorn butter if we could eat acorns we'd see acorn food everywhere we're in canada there's acorns everywhere here's something changus and i agree on we both enjoyed the hazelnut frosting more than peanut butter frosting it's really easy to make there's only four ingredients which are butter hazelnut butter icing sugar and whipping cream and what's really easy about frosting as well is you can always alter the consistency at the last moment so it's not as hard to make as buttercream where something could go entirely wrong if you finish your frosting and you feel like you know what it's a little lighter or a little too soft for my liking then you can just sift in more icing sugar and vice versa if it's a little too stiff you can pour in a few more drops of cream to loosen it up you know what's next i've gotta fill and stack these cakes with the hazelnut frosting i'm going to build that same shape of the body back up one layer at a time spreading an even layer of hazelnut frosting in this case for this cake i did want my frosting to be on the stiffer side because with any novelty cake structure matters so i'm spreading this frosting another layer of cake building it all the way up now remember how i added the little hump to the cap part of the acorn i'm just gonna spread a little frosting in between the hump and the cake to make sure that stays in place but i'm not gonna crumb coat in the frosting i'm going to crumb coat both parts of this cake in chocolate ganache i can't even tell you how good it smelled so both parts are crumb coated in ganache i'm putting them in the fridge to chill once it's chilled i'm going to ice both parts in ganache and i'm going to use my invention which i didn't really invent and is a square of acetate to help me ice the cake especially the cap now that i'm happy with both parts i'm going to place them back in the fridge to chill and i'm going to get ready to roll out some fondant there's going to be a lot of chocolate fondant in this kitchen today what i love about using chocolate fondant is it makes total sense because i need brown fondant right so why would i just take white fondant and diet brown when they make chocolate fondant which is already brown and tastes better yes for those of you who don't think fondant tastes good chocolate fondant chocolate is amazing chocolate fondant tastes good oh this cake was really good so i rolled up my fondant i'm going to roll it nice and thin and then drape it over the body of my cake and i'm going to carefully smooth it all around you want to press the air down and out to avoid any air bubbles being trapped and then you're gonna smooth it all the way around the cake and trim away the excess at the bottom now i'm going to cover the cap portion of this cake same idea you want to measure roll your fondant drape it over and smooth but in this case i need to make sure that i tuck the fondant underneath because we're going to see a little bit of the bottom of this cap when i put the acorn together and then i'm trimming the excess underneath now it's time to texture both these cakes for the body i'm going to use a couple of strip cutters but i'm not cutting the cake in this case i just want to carefully drag it up the fondant because acorns kind of look i don't even know how to describe it they have like a vertical texture on the body of the acorn this is the problem you've never studied an acorn you know why because squirrels take them all right away and bury them and now i'm imagining you like chasing a bunch of squirrels so you can get some acorns yes so you can make this video you're right i should have chased squirrels for acorns i should have done what i needed to do but they scare me do you know a show called rick and morty no it's this like scientist and his grandson going on to adventures and in that squirrels are these agents like they they shape the fate of our planet that's probably why they're so frantic they're carrying a ton of worry right now for the cap of the fondant i'm going to use an entirely different method because the cap kind of looks like the game of thrones eggs oh dragon shells yeah the dragon shells yeah and it also reminded me of when i made the porg cake for star wars and i kept cutting all the hair with little scissors but in this case i'm going to use a couple of gum paste leaf cutters that i have and i'm going to press them into my fondant all the way around and then i'm going to use a sculpting tool to carefully sort of lift each end of the leaf i'm not fully cutting out a leaf but i am texturing the fondant and lifting it up a bit at the bottom at the base i started with a thinner leaf cutter and then when i moved up i moved on to like a bit of a wider cutter so i'm going to do this all the way around all the way to the top so after i did all of that i once again flipped my cake over and made sure to do it around the bottom switching back to the thinner leaf cutter the other thing i need to do is make a stem we have something to add to the stem nub collection i'm very happy so what i did was i'm using some more of my chocolate fondant i dyed it a bit darker and then i rolled it into a thick cord i brushed some clear piping gel onto a wooden dowel and then i pierced the wooden dowel through the cord of fondant to texture the stem the first thing i'm going to do is actually just sort of squeeze it in my hand and then i'm going to use a sculpting tool and run it lengthwise up the stem how do i describe this let's just show the footage i'm just using the sculpting tool to make more lines in the stem there's one tool that i always use in every nub and stem and it is my grass piping tip it's like the piping tip that people typically use to pipe grass or hair and all i do is just press it down into the top of the stem it's time to paint this cake i need to paint all of the parts of the cake i'm using brown gel food coloring and of course clear food grade alcohol i'm gonna mix it together and the first part i'm painting is the body of the acorn i'm just going to paint this brown paint all the way up the body i'm going to make sure to run my brush up and down going along with the texture and then once i paint it all around the whole thing i want to go in with a smaller pointier brush and some undiluted brown gel color and i'm just going to add a few darker lines again making sure to paint vertically up the cake and then i'm going to go back to my larger brush and blend them in always making sure to brush up and down and you know what i thought about after this episode i thought we could have made two episodes in one i should have painted the whole thing gold and we could have made it like a christmas ornament episode guys what were we thinking i have a lot of good ideas after the fact i do this a lot i'm also going to paint the cap of the cake in the same brown paint so i'm painting the entire surface of the cap making sure to paint within the texture all of that now i want to let it dry just a little bit and the next thing i'm going to do is use some fog gel food coloring i know it's such a weird name and the reason i'm doing this is when acorns dry out the top surface of them start to kind of look white and chalky i don't know why i don't know what this has to do with its process life span i have no idea again the squirrels take all the acorns i haven't been able to study them yeah if somebody is monitoring my google search history they are perplexed they're like one minute she's looking up lobsters then green versus brown acorns then crab faces then when will beyonce drop the next ivy park collection back pain like it's just you know what i mean are squirrels secret agents that's my next google search i painted the whole cap we're onto the fog and what i want to do is use a smaller brush and then i want to have a dry brush ready and i'm just going to dab this fog gel color onto the tips of each one of those little leaf impressions and then go back with the dry brush and stipple it to sort of blend it in and i'm going to do this all the way around the whole cake i'm leaving the stem on the cake dummy upright and i'm going to paint the entire length with some brown food coloring and then in the top of the stem again i'm gonna stipple on some of that fog because it looks like it's dried out it's time to assemble this cake i procrastinated for a bit i'm a bit worried because i wanted the acorn to look like they look when they're on the ground you know before the squirrels steal them all and so in theory it should work out but this is really just a cake right so gravity is still naturally pulling it i decided what i was gonna do is i'm gonna use a dowel just to hold the two pieces together and some ganache and then i'm just gonna pray that's that's what i'm going for here then i'm gonna carefully lift the cap of my acorn put it on and push why am i doing this push it onto the acorn so now i've added the top of the acorn it's time to add the stem so i'm carefully inserting it into the cap making sure that the top of it rests on the board and now i'm happy you know what else fall is it's time for a sale so we're combining two great sales with our black friday cyber monday sale did i say sale from november 23rd to 30th you'll get up to 30 off site wide stock up on baking tools bundles sprinkles whatever you need the holidays are coming and we want you to be ready click the corner to shop can't get enough cake you know where to head head northwest wait never eat shredded wheat yes that's how i remember youhey yolanda hey orhan you know what i thought about the fall i thought i should cake a giant acorn i still think of it yeah so once again it's an acorn not a con to make my giant acorn cake i am baking ten and a quarter pounds of my chocolate cake i baked three seven inch round cakes and one nine inch round cake and now that they're baked cooled and chilled i've removed them from their pans and i'm going to begin to level and layer them however i'm only gonna level two of the smaller round cakes one of them i'm going to layer with the hump still on and then for my biggest round cake i'm leaving on the hump i'm not layering it and i'm going to begin to round out the sides from now on i'm going to refer to the acorn in two parts there's kind of like the body of the acorn and then there's the cap like an acorn looks like it's wearing a beret almost you know what i mean it's definitely a fall nut is it actually a nut let's not get into it let's not get into it let's not get into this so for the bigger round cake hump is on not layering it and then i'm going to round out the edges i'm doing this on the top edge all around and the bottom edge all around now i'm actually going to add a hump from one of my smaller cakes and carve it down until i get the shape i want my three smaller cakes i'm going to stack them all one on top of the other so i have the layers of the two cakes that i leveled and then i'm gonna put the layers of the last cake that i didn't level so now i have this little just show the footage because this is what i want is like a little bit of a pointy top and i still want it to remain round but i need to taper it a bit at the top you know how acorns are just like everywhere at one point and then they're gone yeah i think you think i feel like the squirrels like go to battle for all the acorns and then they're just gone squirrels are so like they only have two moods they're either like completely frantic or they're statuesque you know many times i'll see a squirrel and i'll think it's like a squirrel statue because they're so still or they're freaking out they're very like like up the tre like they're they're they're crazy they're crazy i've never seen a squirrel just like casually walk down the sidewalk never seen it now it's time to simple syrup all the layers of cake and all the parts of cake and i'm also going to make a hazelnut frosting which is basically my peanut butter frosting which is already delicious but i'm gonna swap out the peanut butter for hazelnut butter isn't there an acorn spread or something no yes yes auron we've all secretly been eating acorn butter you haven't had acorn butter if we could eat acorns we'd see acorn food everywhere we're in canada there's acorns everywhere here's something changus and i agree on we both enjoyed the hazelnut frosting more than peanut butter frosting it's really easy to make there's only four ingredients which are butter hazelnut butter icing sugar and whipping cream and what's really easy about frosting as well is you can always alter the consistency at the last moment so it's not as hard to make as buttercream where something could go entirely wrong if you finish your frosting and you feel like you know what it's a little lighter or a little too soft for my liking then you can just sift in more icing sugar and vice versa if it's a little too stiff you can pour in a few more drops of cream to loosen it up you know what's next i've gotta fill and stack these cakes with the hazelnut frosting i'm going to build that same shape of the body back up one layer at a time spreading an even layer of hazelnut frosting in this case for this cake i did want my frosting to be on the stiffer side because with any novelty cake structure matters so i'm spreading this frosting another layer of cake building it all the way up now remember how i added the little hump to the cap part of the acorn i'm just gonna spread a little frosting in between the hump and the cake to make sure that stays in place but i'm not gonna crumb coat in the frosting i'm going to crumb coat both parts of this cake in chocolate ganache i can't even tell you how good it smelled so both parts are crumb coated in ganache i'm putting them in the fridge to chill once it's chilled i'm going to ice both parts in ganache and i'm going to use my invention which i didn't really invent and is a square of acetate to help me ice the cake especially the cap now that i'm happy with both parts i'm going to place them back in the fridge to chill and i'm going to get ready to roll out some fondant there's going to be a lot of chocolate fondant in this kitchen today what i love about using chocolate fondant is it makes total sense because i need brown fondant right so why would i just take white fondant and diet brown when they make chocolate fondant which is already brown and tastes better yes for those of you who don't think fondant tastes good chocolate fondant chocolate is amazing chocolate fondant tastes good oh this cake was really good so i rolled up my fondant i'm going to roll it nice and thin and then drape it over the body of my cake and i'm going to carefully smooth it all around you want to press the air down and out to avoid any air bubbles being trapped and then you're gonna smooth it all the way around the cake and trim away the excess at the bottom now i'm going to cover the cap portion of this cake same idea you want to measure roll your fondant drape it over and smooth but in this case i need to make sure that i tuck the fondant underneath because we're going to see a little bit of the bottom of this cap when i put the acorn together and then i'm trimming the excess underneath now it's time to texture both these cakes for the body i'm going to use a couple of strip cutters but i'm not cutting the cake in this case i just want to carefully drag it up the fondant because acorns kind of look i don't even know how to describe it they have like a vertical texture on the body of the acorn this is the problem you've never studied an acorn you know why because squirrels take them all right away and bury them and now i'm imagining you like chasing a bunch of squirrels so you can get some acorns yes so you can make this video you're right i should have chased squirrels for acorns i should have done what i needed to do but they scare me do you know a show called rick and morty no it's this like scientist and his grandson going on to adventures and in that squirrels are these agents like they they shape the fate of our planet that's probably why they're so frantic they're carrying a ton of worry right now for the cap of the fondant i'm going to use an entirely different method because the cap kind of looks like the game of thrones eggs oh dragon shells yeah the dragon shells yeah and it also reminded me of when i made the porg cake for star wars and i kept cutting all the hair with little scissors but in this case i'm going to use a couple of gum paste leaf cutters that i have and i'm going to press them into my fondant all the way around and then i'm going to use a sculpting tool to carefully sort of lift each end of the leaf i'm not fully cutting out a leaf but i am texturing the fondant and lifting it up a bit at the bottom at the base i started with a thinner leaf cutter and then when i moved up i moved on to like a bit of a wider cutter so i'm going to do this all the way around all the way to the top so after i did all of that i once again flipped my cake over and made sure to do it around the bottom switching back to the thinner leaf cutter the other thing i need to do is make a stem we have something to add to the stem nub collection i'm very happy so what i did was i'm using some more of my chocolate fondant i dyed it a bit darker and then i rolled it into a thick cord i brushed some clear piping gel onto a wooden dowel and then i pierced the wooden dowel through the cord of fondant to texture the stem the first thing i'm going to do is actually just sort of squeeze it in my hand and then i'm going to use a sculpting tool and run it lengthwise up the stem how do i describe this let's just show the footage i'm just using the sculpting tool to make more lines in the stem there's one tool that i always use in every nub and stem and it is my grass piping tip it's like the piping tip that people typically use to pipe grass or hair and all i do is just press it down into the top of the stem it's time to paint this cake i need to paint all of the parts of the cake i'm using brown gel food coloring and of course clear food grade alcohol i'm gonna mix it together and the first part i'm painting is the body of the acorn i'm just going to paint this brown paint all the way up the body i'm going to make sure to run my brush up and down going along with the texture and then once i paint it all around the whole thing i want to go in with a smaller pointier brush and some undiluted brown gel color and i'm just going to add a few darker lines again making sure to paint vertically up the cake and then i'm going to go back to my larger brush and blend them in always making sure to brush up and down and you know what i thought about after this episode i thought we could have made two episodes in one i should have painted the whole thing gold and we could have made it like a christmas ornament episode guys what were we thinking i have a lot of good ideas after the fact i do this a lot i'm also going to paint the cap of the cake in the same brown paint so i'm painting the entire surface of the cap making sure to paint within the texture all of that now i want to let it dry just a little bit and the next thing i'm going to do is use some fog gel food coloring i know it's such a weird name and the reason i'm doing this is when acorns dry out the top surface of them start to kind of look white and chalky i don't know why i don't know what this has to do with its process life span i have no idea again the squirrels take all the acorns i haven't been able to study them yeah if somebody is monitoring my google search history they are perplexed they're like one minute she's looking up lobsters then green versus brown acorns then crab faces then when will beyonce drop the next ivy park collection back pain like it's just you know what i mean are squirrels secret agents that's my next google search i painted the whole cap we're onto the fog and what i want to do is use a smaller brush and then i want to have a dry brush ready and i'm just going to dab this fog gel color onto the tips of each one of those little leaf impressions and then go back with the dry brush and stipple it to sort of blend it in and i'm going to do this all the way around the whole cake i'm leaving the stem on the cake dummy upright and i'm going to paint the entire length with some brown food coloring and then in the top of the stem again i'm gonna stipple on some of that fog because it looks like it's dried out it's time to assemble this cake i procrastinated for a bit i'm a bit worried because i wanted the acorn to look like they look when they're on the ground you know before the squirrels steal them all and so in theory it should work out but this is really just a cake right so gravity is still naturally pulling it i decided what i was gonna do is i'm gonna use a dowel just to hold the two pieces together and some ganache and then i'm just gonna pray that's that's what i'm going for here then i'm gonna carefully lift the cap of my acorn put it on and push why am i doing this push it onto the acorn so now i've added the top of the acorn it's time to add the stem so i'm carefully inserting it into the cap making sure that the top of it rests on the board and now i'm happy you know what else fall is it's time for a sale so we're combining two great sales with our black friday cyber monday sale did i say sale from november 23rd to 30th you'll get up to 30 off site wide stock up on baking tools bundles sprinkles whatever you need the holidays are coming and we want you to be ready click the corner to shop can't get enough cake you know where to head head northwest wait never eat shredded wheat yes that's how i remember you\n"