Have you been looking for another excuse to buy Cadbury mini eggs before Easter candy season is over? Personally, my mini egg obsession is out of control, and I think I’ve completely exhausted my list of excuses to buy any more of them. But that didn’t stop me from making this festive cake inspired by my favorite Easter temptations.
Ever since I saw this speckled egg cake on The Cake Blog, I’ve been wanting to try the splattered effect myself, though I’ll admit I was pretty intimidated by it. I thought, “What if I mess up and ruin the whole cake?” But then I thought, “Silly, as long as there’s still butter and sugar involved, all is not lost!”
My family surely wouldn’t be opposed to eating an ugly cake, as horrified as I might be to present them with one. But fortunately, the speckled egg effect was very easy to achieve, and very forgiving! Check out how I assembled this cake, which has quickly become a family favorite.
I made two 8″ white cakes the day before assembling the final cake. They rested overnight wrapped in plastic wrap alongside my pink buttercream frosting and sorted mini eggs.
Before assembling the cake, I chopped strawberries and tossed them in glaze for the cake’s filling because that’s what the fam requested. Also, I thought strawberries would taste great with the chocolate eggs and look nice alongside the pink frosting.
To contain the strawberry filling, I piped a little wall of frosting around the edge of the bottom layer of cake. Then I topped it with the second cake layer, piped frosting all over, and smoothed it with a cake frosting spatula.
You’ll want to leave the parchment paper under the cake before the splattering process. It gets very messy! Just be sure to refrigerate the cake a bit to allow the frosting to stiffen before removing the parchment paper.
You don’t want the frosting to pull away with the parchment paper because you can’t smooth it back in place without messing up the speckled effect.
Cover your work surface with paper towels or newspaper before beginning the splattering. Dilute a little gel food coloring with water and practice on some extra frosting before speckling your cake.
I found that if I diluted the gel too much, the color ran a bit. If I used less water and more gel, the splatters were less likely to run. I practiced twice on a little extra frosting before I felt confident with my technique.
For my splattering technique, I used the brush shown above, dipped it in the diluted gel, then tapped once or twice into the bowl to get the big drips off the brush.
Then I tapped the brush handle with my finger to splatter the color onto the cake. If any spot resulted in an ugly drip, I immediately soaked it up with a piece of paper towel and splattered over the area again.
After creating my border of mini eggs, I did a tiny bit of splattering over the eggs with a barely wet brush, to prevent any dripping from too much gel color on the eggs.
That’s all there is to it! You can do as much or as little splattering as you want, and if you prefer, you could use malted eggs or other candy to suit the flavors of the cake you decided to make.
My favorite thing about any religious holiday is the time we spend enjoying food together as a family. I brought this cake to my in-law’s house and enjoyed it with four generations of people who love sweets. Maybe we’ll make this cake an Easter tradition? I vote yes! –Mandi
Hi. What recipe did you use for the pink frosting and strawberry glaze?
Hi Cydney! I actually just used glaze I purchased from the store. I like to make things easier on myself when possible. 🙂 -Mandi
Would love to have seen a recipe here for the cake,the buttercream and the strawberry glaze. Clicking through to another site for essentially the same thing was a bit disappointing. It looks so delish but I have to go elsewhere to fund a cake recipe,then a buttercream recipe then a strawberry glaze recipe.Boo.
That looks fab, definitely need to try this 🙂
Maxine xx
Www.chatterboxmax.blogspot.co.uk
I just hope that it’s as good as it looks. So beautiful
Can you offer the filling recipe for the strawberries?
My son will love this. May I have your permission to use your Lavender Honey Marshmallows recipe on my blog giving you full credit of course? Thank you for your time and consideration.
That cake is so beautiful! And a great way to sneak some mini eggs into my baking, since I promised not to have any candy this month, but hey, cake doesn’t count right? xx
http://shakespeareandsparkle.com/
This cake is beautiful!!
www.giltedgeblog.com
Beautiful!!
I think I found my Easter cake.
This looks beautiful.
Thanks for sharing
That cake looks too pretty to eat! I can’t wait to try this and wow all my relatives!
xx
Ella
http://www.thirteenoctobers.com
This cake is so gorgeous! You did an amazing job!
Paige
http://thehappyflammily.com
What a beautiful looking cake. Really the nicest I have seen as I love pink things 🙂 I am definitely saving this post and trying it myself. Gemma x
www.jacquardflower.uk
Hi Laura! Mandi used this recipe http://thecakeblog.com/2013/02/speckled-egg-cake.html 🙂 -Jacki
Wow! That is such a great idea for an easter cake!
http://www.sprinkleofroses.co.uk/
What a pretty cake! It definitely has the ‘wow’ factor!
how festive and fabulous! Im gonna have to give this a try! Xx
Www.Myhealthycurves.com
Is there a recipe to go along with this?
Oh wow it looks so delicious
Beauty Candy Loves