My father asked for a Coca Cola themed cake for his birthday this year. Although he is not a huge Cocoa Cola drinker, he does have quite the collection of Coca Cola paraphernalia. I asked him well in advance to give me an exact picture or model of what he would like his cake to look like. He first asked me to make a model of a Coca Cola truck, but soon told me he was just joking about that, because it would be quite difficult to shape a cake like that. Next, he asked me for a Coca Cola cooler cake, but then decided against it. Coca Cola coolers are mostly red, and he did not want a cake with mostly red icing, nor did I want to make a cake like that because this is a lot of food coloring to consume. He could not find a good-looking Coca Cola cake design that was mostly a white background with red, so he left it up to me. The last I heard was, "Surprise me." I decided to stick with the Coca Cola theme, because I knew that was what he wanted. After finding a good recipe for a Coca Cola Chocolate Cake, I looked up ideas for a Coca Cola design that would be mostly white with some red trim. Here is what I decided on.
I made two eight inch round layers of Coca Cola Chocolate Cake. I iced them completely with Creamy White Frosting, a change from my usual buttercream, because I figured this icing would be easier to spread on a delicate cake, and whiter in color than my signature buttercream icing (since I use real butter). Then I used red icing. I added a top border of big and small balls, and a bottom border of simple stars. I wrote Happy Birthday Dad and then "Open Happiness" Coca Cola's slogan in America for 2012. I added a coke bottle shape on top, and on the side, the Coca Cola logo in my own font, which hopefully looks close to the handwriting on Coca Cola's logo.
I did have some slight issues with this cake however. The whipped cream icing did spread very nicely over the cake, although the cake did not turn out to be as delicate as I had anticipated, so buttercream probably would have been fine anyway. I had just the right amount of icing left over to pipe on the cake, and because I hate to waste, I decided to use this instead of mixing up a little buttercream. Unfortunately, the addition of red food coloring to the icing did not seem to yield very good results. The icing still seemed stiff enough to pipe, but when I began to pipe it out of my pastry bag, the red food coloring did not seem to be completely mixed in with the icing, and some of it ran or bled. This would be a good technique to keep in mind for a Halloween zombie cake, but it did not look the greatest here. Oh well, I'll know for future reference not to use this icing for piping.
It is my father's birthday tomorrow. I am going to decorate his cake in a Coca Cola theme, because my father has a Coca Cola collection of tins, lamps, etc. Although he is not a huge fan of the drink, he does like it. I decided since the cake is going to be decorated as a Coca Cola theme, I might as well make a Coca Cola flavored cake too. Actually, Cola Chocolate Cake is not unusual at all. From searching cookbooks and the internet, I have discovered there are two basic recipes for cola chocolate cake. One for a plain cola chocolate cake, and the other for a cola chocolate crater cake. The latter option contains miniature marshmallows that rise to the top of the batter and make little craters in the cake. I opted for the first option, since I plan to ice and decorate the cake, and we aren't huge marshmallow fans here, especially in our cakes.
Cola Chocolate Cake
1 cup butter
1/4 unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup coca cola carbonated beverage
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose (plain) flour
2 cups granulated (white) sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, optional
Preheat oven to 350◦F. Grease a 9x13 inch rectangular cake pan, or two 8 or 9 inch round cake pans.
In a medium saucepan, bring the first four ingredients to a boil. Add the eggs and vanilla.
In a large bowl, combine the remaining dry ingredients. Add the liquid to the dry and mix (I used a handheld electric mixer to better combine all of the ingredients). Bake for about 30 minutes (mine took about 35 minutes), until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. This recipe is quicker and easier than my usual chocolate cake recipe. Hopefully it is tasty too.
