This is not a cake.
But before we riddle, lets get to the real business of this post – goodbyes.
And so it is time for another goodbye. This time it’s my Extension 1 English class that i’m farewelling. Of course, my farewells happen with cake. After all, a class party without cake is just a class. Not that my classes are boring…
In this class we study an unusual topic that is all about challenging the things in this world that we suppose to be true. My students grappled with complex intellectual concepts that sometimes resulted in some minds being blown. But these girls persevered and trusted me when I kept telling them that it would all make sense soon. I’m so grateful to have had the privilege to teach such clever, hard working and all round cheerful girls. They tackled every challenge with unwavering good humour and this even extended to the difficult task I gave them for our final class: bring in dessert that reflected the elective that they studied this year (Textual Dynamics).
There were:
- pancakes with bacon and maple syrup to challenge the conventions of breakfast foods being either sweet or savoury (not to mention eating breakfast for afternoon tea!)
- intertextual foodstuffs with monopoly house fruitcake
- a deconstructionist eton mess
- texturally dynamic rocky road (puns galore!)
They set the bar pretty high, so I had to pull out all the stops to bake a textually dynamic cake. After considering some of the texts we have studied, in particular, the graphic novel ‘Building Stories’ by Chris Ware which looks remarkably like a board game, I thought, why not make something that looks like a cake but is not a cake?
See? Looks like a chocolate cake, but isn’t a cake.
What is it?
It’s a pinata!
It looked like a cake, tasted like a cake, but when we cut it open and lollies spilled out it became clear that it was a pinata! A cakey, tasty pinata but a pinata nonetheless. This was such a fun cake to make and eat and I felt like it reflected the atmosphere of our classes perfectly.
Thanks for being such great students! <3
Pinata Cake Assembly Instructions
Firstly, you need to make your cake. I used this Chocolate Cake recipe (which is pretty much my go-to recipe)
Then you need to whip up your icing. Normal buttercream should be fine but I wanted something sturdier so I used this chocolate icing recipe from Sweetapolita
Next, using a scone or cookie cutter, cut a hole in the centre of each layer of cake and remove the circle (to eat later, but keep the circle from the top layer of cake!) Then layer each slice of cake, using the icing to keep it all stuck together.
Pour in your lollies (I used jaffas and smarties) so that they just reach the height of the second last layer of cake.
Place the final circle of cake on top of the lollies making sure that the top is level
Then ice ice baby!
